Developing People and Teams

Key focus areas for Developing People and Teams are Facilitation, Leadership Styles, Coaching, and Mentoring. All Scrum Team roles must effectively use Scrum and continuously improve their Scrum implementation to increase the benefits and adapt as new challenges arise. Embracing these challenges by continuously Developing People and Teams results in motivated and dynamic high-performing teams capable of collaborating effectively together, and across an organization, to creatively and productively solve complex problems in product delivery. Facilitation

Developing People and Teams – Facilitation

A facilitator is a person who chooses or is given the explicit role of conducting a meeting. As a Scrum Master, you will need to facilitate Scrum events, decision making, conflict resolution, and other critical discussions.

A Scrum Master should:

• Facilitate relationships and collaboration both within the team and the teams environment;
• Facilitate the Scrum process and the continuous improvement of the process;
• Facilitate the integration of the Scrum team into the entire organization;
• Facilitate the Scrum events to be purposeful and effective;
• Facilitate the team in achieving their (personal) objectives.

Characteristics of well-facilitated Scrum events are:

• The Daily Scrum contains an atmosphere where healthy peer pressure occurs on delivery quality, commitment, and addressing impediments;
• Sprint Planning is all about collaboration between the Product Owner and the Development team and has a strong focus on delivering business value. All team members understand the work and jointly agree to achieve the sprint goal;
• The Sprint Review is an energizing event in which the Scrum team, sponsors and stakeholders together inspect the product increment and backlog. But also retrospect their collaboration and how this can be improved. They act as one team with the same purpose, there are no barriers between ‘client’ and ‘supplier’;
• The Retrospective is done in a safe atmosphere in which ‘the elephant in the room’ is addressed, discussed, and turned into actionable improvements that the team members agree upon realizing in the next sprint.

Effective facilitation skill

1. Invite the right people and know your audience. Design your session: location, time available, activities, outcomes.
2. Understanding your role – Facilitator versus Participant, Active Listening, The Scribe Role.
3. Ensure that everyone participating in the discussion understand its purpose. You would need to set the context at the beginning and may have to reiterate once in a while when you see that the discussions are digressing from the context.
4. Working agreement at the beginning will help. E.g., mobile/ electronics usage,  punctuality, participant expectations, etc. Listing the Scrum values, especially if you are going to deal with conflict resolution may help the discussion.
5. If the event/ meeting is not interactive, you may want to spend some time take some time to find the Root Cause.
6. Create a safe environment for people to speak by ensuring that people focus on task at hand rather than pointing fingers. Immediately interject if there are any personal attacks.
7. Use Time-boxing to ensure that discussions are productive.
8. Balance the discussions so that introverts feel included in the discussions.
9. As a facilitator, you need to read the mood in the room to take breaks at regular intervals to keep the energy level high for productive discussion.
10. Be neutral in your stance and do not take sides (beware of your implicit bias during heated discussions)

Developing People and Teams – Leadership Styles

There are three Scrum master leadership styles

Leader as Expert: The manager (leader) is the most knowledgeable person who is supposed to give orders to workers and is responsible for planning, allocation of resources, and overall people organization. Technically proficient in one or more knowledge areas or domains.

Leader as Conductor: Doesn’t provide the technical solution but instead orchestrates the activities of the organization to achieve the desired objectives.

Leader as Developer: People at each level can solve most of their problems by themselves. So don’t give orders rather encourage them to come up with solutions and take over responsibility for running the company. Helps the team realize their fullest potential.

Leadership Characteristics

Focus on the people: Ask your Product Owners & Scrum Masters what you can do to help them grow in their role

Dare to let go: Ask your Scrum Team what incentives could lead to a higher focus on customer value.

Lead by example: Ask your Scrum teams and fellow leaders how do they perceive the 5 Scrum values in your organization.

Avoid shortcuts: If you want fast adoption and growth, hire external expertise and create a setting where people can fail and learn fast.

Growing at the same pace causes less tension: Ask your Scrum team what organizational limitations keep them from making decisions as a whole.

Servant leadership

Traditional leadership style is based on power by one at the “top of the pyramid.” So whoever is on the top has control of the decision-making power. Servant leaders focus on the needs of the team members and those they serve (the customer), with the goal of achieving results in line with the organization’s values, principles, and business objectives. Scrum Masters are called Servant Leaders.

Servant leader Characteristics

Listening: A servant leader should show importance in listening to others.

Empathy: He should understand others’ feelings and points of view.

Healing: A servant leader encourages each person’s emotional and spiritual health and wholeness.

Awareness: A servant leader understands his or her own values, feelings, strengths, and weaknesses.

Persuasion: A servant leader influences others through their expression.

Conceptualization: A servant leader should have the ability to integrate between the present realities and the future possibilities.

Foresight: A servant leader should have a great instinct about how the past, present, and future are connected.

Servant Leadership comes when

• Focus on building a foundation of trust
• Commitment to put yourself last
• Focus on the greatness of others
• Courage to speak the truth
• Stimulates empowerment and transparency
• Openness about own vulnerability
• Encourages collaborative engagement
• Is an un-blocker & empathic person able to truly listen
• Show ethical & caring behavior putting others needs first
• Is humble, knowledgeable, positive, social and situationally aware

Developing People and Teams – Coaching and Mentoring

Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping people to learn rather than teaching them. It is helping someone see new perspectives and possibilities.

A mentor is a wise and trusted counselor or teacher. For mentoring, however, having in-depth knowledge is important. Mentoring transfers your agile knowledge and experience to the team as that specific knowledge becomes relevant to what’s happening with them. 

Listening actively to others is one of the most powerful tools you can have for effective coaching. There are 3 levels of listening –

• Level 1: Internal listening – You tend to listen more to your own inner voice rather than focusing on what is being said. At this point, you may be making opinions or be judgmental.
• Level 2: Focused listening – At this point, you maintain a laser-sharp focus on what is said by the person. At this level, you are listening intently to every word and “listening” to every nuance in the conversation.
• Level 3: Global listening – At this level, you are able to uncover the underlying meaning of the spoken words and are conscious of the emotions of the person. This enables you to connect with the person.

Shu-Ha-Ri

Shu – Follow the rule

In Shu, we repeat the forms and discipline ourselves so that our bodies absorb the forms that our forebears created. We remain faithful to these forms with no deviation.

• Drill individual practices.
• Follow recommendations.
• Don’t give up; it works the way it is described.
• Be patient; it will take time to train your muscle memory.

Ha – Break the rule

once we have disciplined ourselves to acquire the forms and movements, we make innovations. Hence in this process, the forms may be broken and discarded.

• Inspect and adapt, create your own deviations, but keep the original meaning and philosophy.
• Go for a deep understanding of purpose.
• Think about practices, concepts, and frameworks in context, how they support or contradict each other.

Ri – Be the rule

we completely depart from the forms, open the door to creative technique, and arrive in a place where we act in accordance with what our heart/mind desires, unhindered while not overstepping laws

• Learn from your own practice and experience.
• Develop and share new concepts, and teach others

More reference on Scrum Master Tools & Techniques.

Table of Contents

1. Scrum Framework – Scrum Theory
2. Scrum Framework – Scrum Roles
3. Scrum Framework – Scrum Events
4. Scrum Framework – Scrum Artifacts
5. Scaling Scrum – DoD – DoR – Scrum Framework
6. Developing People and Teams
7. Managing Products with Agility
8. Developing and Delivering Products Professionally
9. Evolving the Agile Organization – Scaled Scrum, Portfolio Planning & EBM

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