Scrum Theory Essentials. Developing People and Teams
Traditional management models consider the work of people and team development to be the job of the team’s manager. Scrum puts specific responsibility on Scrum Masters to support and guide Scrum Team members (as well as other members of the organisation). However, team development is not only the responsibility of the Scrum Master. Since Scrum Teams are self-managing, all team members are responsible for helping the team continually improve through techniques that “develop people and teams.”
Self-Managing Teams
When teams are faced with complex problems (where more is unknown than known), or given the responsibility to create an innovative product, they are rarely able to succeed by following someone’s specific instructions. The team can only arrive at the solution by experimenting their way to it. They must create hypotheses, determine how to test their hypothesis and act on the insights they uncovered through their experimentation. Simply said: the team needs the autonomy to get its work done. However, the phrase “self-management” has led some to believe that Scrum is anti-management or anti-manager. This is simply not true.
The best way to support a team working this way is to give them the space to determine how to do their work, rather than directing them. This space and empowerment is the essence of self-management.
Agile leaders recognize that their role is not to “manage” the team, but to create the conditions that enable or support their team’s ability to manage itself.
It’s also important for a self-managing team to be cross-functional and have the skills necessary to perform their day-to-day work without constantly relying on colleagues outside of the team. Not having the necessary skills on the team reduces the team’s autonomy and ability to optimally manage their own work.
| What motivates people? | Form teams naturally with: |
|---|---|
| Autonomy | Team members who want change (opt-in) |
| Mastery | Team members who want to work together (self-organisation) |
| Purpose | Mutually-agreed commitments and decision processes (self direction) |
| But guided by business goals |
As we mentioned previously, self-managing teams determine what to do, when and how the work should be done and who does it.
Leadership Styles
The terms “leader” and “manager” are often used interchangeably, yet they are very different concepts. Understanding the difference is key to understanding the role of leaders and managers in agile organizations.
Managers and Management – As simple as it sounds, managers “manage.” They concern themselves with the day-to-day operations of the business. Managers generally oversee people, processes or tasks, making certain that work is on-track. Management is generally an organisational role that comes with a level of authority. Teams are often compelled to follow the direction of their managers simply because of this organisational authority.
Leaders and Leadership – Similarly, leaders “lead.” Leaders present compelling visions for the future and seek to inspire people and teams to achieve their common goals. Leaders paint a captivating picture and teams follow them not because they hold authority over them, but because they believe in the vision and trust the leader.
Some leaders are managers, but not all managers are leaders.
Managers and leaders in Scrum – While there are often managers in organisations, there is no such construct in Scrum. On the other hand, there can be many leaders on a Scrum Team. For example, the Scrum Master acts as a leader in the Scrum domain, influencing the team to improve their effectiveness by using Scrum. The Product Owners are product leaders, creating an enthralling vision of the product and influencing the team to manifest its value. Similarly, any Developer on the team can also be a leader by using their expertise to drive innovation and deliver value.
A leader’s style is the way they present themselves. It includes their demeanor and the methods they use for influencing others.
Given the tight connection between agility, complex problems and our focus on Scrum, it makes sense to talk about the traits of agile leaders in Scrum terms.
For example, agile leaders:
Facilitation
A facilitator plays an important role in helping people to understand and achieve their shared goals and objectives. They do this while remaining neutral and impartial. Facilitators enable a purposeful and participative environment in which people feel safe to engage, learn and collaborate. They encourage people to explore different perspectives, harness diversity and leverage collective wisdom.
Steps for Building Consensus
Have everyone understand the meaning of giving consent by encouraging them to think about what’s best for the entire team rather than individuals.
Clearly articulate what needs to be decided. It may be a good idea to also layout why the issue is being raised.
Before pitching for lengthy discussion, do a quick poll to check if there is consensus. If majority of the team agrees to a solution, listen to the concerns of dissenters. Adapt the popular solution to get their points addressed so we have a win-win solution.
If there is a disagreement amongst team members, allow everyone to voice their concerns during the discussion so their ideas can be included. It would be a good idea to list them to ensure these get addressed.
List Scrum Values and ask people the follow them throughout the discussion.
Leverage Timeboxing to ensure that you curtail lengthy discussions.
For final decision, do another poll to see if majority of the team agrees. Dissenter (if any), can serve as critical evaluator of the implementation of team decision. This may help spot issues before rest of the team can see it.
Ensure that the team decision is communicated at the end of the meeting.
Facilitation Principles
The Scrum Values are at the heart of a Professional Scrum Team, guiding them in their work, actions and behaviour. Complementary to the Scrum Values are the facilitation principles of participatory, healthy, transparency, process and purposeful. Falling back on these core principles can help facilitators work with teams to achieve objectives collaboratively in different situations. These principles can also help facilitators decide which facilitation skills and techniques might be appropriate and useful. This holds true not only when creating an energetic environment where the team is engaged and focused on achieving the objective together, but also when interactions do not go as expected.
- Participatory – Core to effective facilitation is full participation and engagement, which enables shared responsibility in a team
- Healthy – A safe environment means creating a healthy space where people feel safe to raise differences and even conflicting perspectives while respectfully learning from each other
- Transparency – Transparency only exists when there is shared understanding
- Process – Facilitation should enable a team to progress toward the desired objective of the interaction in a way that is collaborative, inclusive and leverages diverse perspectives
- Purposeful – Well-facilitated sessions should have a clear objective that everyone is aligned with and works toward.
Skills and Traits of a Facilitator
Facilitators can come from many backgrounds and have varying levels of experience. Great facilitators, however, demonstrate the following skills and traits:
- Active Listening: A facilitator has the ability to listen actively, and focus completely on what is said and what is not said. They lead by example, inspiring participants to both fully express themselves and engage in active listening when others are speaking.
- Encouraging Curiosity: A facilitator encourages curiosity and different viewpoints. They are skilled in asking powerful, often open-ended questions, in order to stimulate reflection and discussion.
- Problem Solving: A facilitator is skilled at applying group problem-solving techniques. They can help a group define a problem, reframe it as a clear problem statement and encourage the group to consider a range of solutions to the problem.
- Resolving Conflict: A facilitator recognizes that conflict among group members is natural and, as long as it’s expressed appropriately, does not need to be suppressed. Conflict should be expected and dealt with constructively and respectfully.
- Using a Participative Style: A facilitator encourages all participants to actively engage and contribute in activities and discussions, depending on their individual comfort levels. This includes creating a safe and comfortable atmosphere, in which group members are willing to share their thoughts and ideas.
- Encouraging Openness: A facilitator encourages the group to be open to other people’s ideas, suggestions and perspectives.
- Empathising and Showing Compassion: A facilitator is understanding, aware and respectful of the feelings, perspectives or actions of others.
- Demonstrating Leadership: A facilitator leads a group of people to reach their collective goals and objectives.
- Building Consensus: A facilitator is skilled in helping groups to achieve general agreement.
- Managing Time Effectively: A facilitator keeps things on course while allowing flexibility. They focus on achieving the outcome within a timeframe instead of a strict agenda. Overly restrictive time management can stifle good, purposeful conversations and reflection, whereas a lack of time management can limit focus and progress.
- Setting Objectives: A facilitator communicates the purpose of a meeting in a clear and concise manner. This can be done by setting a strong overarching objective (often done in collaboration with the team) instead of focusing on a strict agenda.
- Communicating Adequately: A facilitator communicates effectively, using clear and concise language.
- Being Organised: Facilitation does not start or end with the act of facilitating a group of people. It includes preparation and following-up on decisions that were made.
Why is Facilitation Beneficial for Scrum Teams?
Open and respectful communication will help a Scrum Team thrive as a self-managing team. While members on a Scrum Team should talk to each other whenever they need to, Scrum assures communication points for the team in the Scrum events. Every event has a specific purpose and the team benefits from having these events facilitated with the desired outcome in mind.
Any person on the Scrum Team can facilitate the Scrum events. For example, Sprint Planning is more effective and exploratory when someone on the team, acting as an objective facilitator, knows how to frame problems to understand how Product Backlog Items may be valuable for customers. A Developer may be a great person to do that, given their familiarity with the product.
Often, Scrum events don’t go as planned. Good, lightweight facilitation can help the Scrum Teams get back on track. For example, if the Scrum Master observes that the team continually uses the Daily Scrum as a status update instead of an inspection of progress toward the Sprint Goal, then the Scrum Master could help team members to focus by reminding them of the purpose of the event. This will encourage team members to shift their focus from tasks to how they can collaborate toward achieving the Sprint Goal.
Taking on a facilitator stance is also valuable for a Product Owner, especially at the Sprint Review when the Scrum Team and stakeholders inspect progress toward the Product Goal, gather stakeholder feedback and adapt the Product Backlog accordingly. When done well, the Product Owner and Developers can learn and hear different opinions from the stakeholders. When not done as well, the Product Owner risks anchoring or limiting the information gathered, reducing the effectiveness of the Sprint Review.
Coaching
In an agile context, the word “coaching” is used in several ways:
- Agile Coach – Among agilists, the word “coach” is frequently used to describe the role of an “Agile Coach.” This is someone who uses agile approaches to help people and teams reach their objectives or overcome challenges. An Agile Coach doesn’t just coach per se; they also advise, lead, facilitate and teach the teams they are helping.
- To describe the discipline of “coaching.” Informally speaking, someone who coaches provides guidance to help others achieve their professional or personal goals. There are also professional organizations that provide prescribed courses of study to become a certified coach. These organizations have formal definitions of what coaching entails.
When we refer to coaching as a Professional Scrum competency, we’re generally discussing the discipline of coaching and how coaching skills can be used to increase effectiveness and outcomes of a Scrum Team and its members.
The coach’s job is to be a process expert, enabling those they are coaching to achieve their goals using skills such as developmental conversations, active listening and asking thought-provoking questions. Strictly speaking, coaches take a neutral stance with regard to how the person being coached achieves their goals; they do not share their experience, advice and opinions. (This is in contrast to “mentorship,” where the mentor DOES share their experience, advice and opinions).
The various certifying bodies for coaching have strict guidance on how coaching is done and how a coach interacts with those they are coaching. The following are some of the elements of successful coaching:
- Intentional – When a practitioner is coaching they are deeply involved and interested in a person or team’s ultimate success. However, coaches do not have their own agenda, they act on the goals set by the person or group they are coaching.
- Neutral – The coach remains unbiased and non-judgemental about the subject matter. They help people achieve their goals without steering them. Those being coached are guided to draw on their own experiences and capabilities to overcome challenges, rather than learning directly from the coach’s experiences. (This is a key differentiator from mentoring where the mentor actively provides advice based on their own experiences).
- Agreed – Formal coaching requires permission or consent in the form of written agreements. These agreements include the goals of the engagement and coaching approaches, clearly distinguishing between what coaching is and what it is not.
- Systemic – Coaches listen actively to what is being communicated. They seek to find and allow for the voice of the system (or the whole group, or the unsaid) to be heard. Coaches notice trends and patterns in behaviours and interactions, then reflect them back to enable richer communication and more effective decision-making processes.
- Ethical – Coaches create and manage a unique, safe and inclusive space. For this reason, it’s imperative that they maintain integrity and confidentiality.
Successful coaches demonstrate capabilities from both agile and coaching areas of expertise. In order to have a holistic approach to coaching, we suggest agilists develop proficiency in the following areas:
| Supports the Team’s Self-Management | Self-management is founded on the assumption that everyone on the team has valuable ideas and is responsible for their own outcomes. When coaching, you have a responsibility to help uncover ways of developing self-management, including your own. |
| Models the Scrum Values | In the context of Scrum, sharing common values is central to building an environment of trust where people feel encouraged to inspect and adapt toward shared goals. When coaching, you have a unique opportunity to model the Scrum Values and bring awareness of their merit to the team. |
| Navigates Complexity in Human Relationships | People are complex. Navigating this complexity requires emotional/social skills like listening, empathy, and building shared understanding. |
| Encourages the Team’s Growth through Empiricism | Empiricism is the growth of knowledge through experience, it is foundational to Scrum. When we help the team focus on a defined problem, apply small changes and use the evidence of what happened to build their understanding, they generate new solutions and options for themselves. |
Coaching requires you to leverage a wide range of skills. Successful coaching requires you to work with what is present and make choices in the moment. This means developing proficiency in many skills:
Teaching
Skiil and Traits of a Teacher
| Humility | Someone who is teaching should have a humble attitude in order to make themselves more approachable and provide a safe environment for learning. |
| Subject Matter Knowledge | Teachers must have confidence in the subject they’re teaching. Being able to answer questions without preparation will help teach as well as give learners confidence in the knowledge they are receiving. |
| Patience | Teachers should have patience with their learners. Creating an environment that is not welcoming to those who may need more help will discourage them from learning. |
| Empathy | Being understanding of those who are learning is an important quality when teaching. A teacher should be able to put themselves in the position of the learner in order to assess whether or not they are teaching effectively. |
| Adaptability | When teaching, one should be able to change their teaching style when needed. If a concept they are teaching is understood faster than expected, move on to the next portion. If the concept is not well understood, shift to another style of teaching to accommodate the learners or material. |
Instruction should be designed around learning outcomes
Frequent feedback is a key tenet of Scrum. It helps the Scrum Team either continue on their current course, or adapt and change their approach. The same concepts hold true for teaching. When a learner is provided the results of an assessment, they can uncover whether they have achieved their learning goals, or if they need to consider another approach to learning.
Just as Scrum includes the Sprint Retrospective to assess whether the team used methods that were effective in achieving the Sprint Goal, a teacher should spend time reflecting on whether their methods were effective in helping the learners achieve their learning objectives.
Mentoring
Mentoring is a mutually beneficial relationship in which a mentor provides guidance to a mentee to help the mentee reach their goals. Mentoring is often confused with coaching since they both heavily rely on developmental conversations, active listening and asking thought-provoking questions. However, unlike coaches, mentors actively share their experience, advice and opinions, often acting as a role model and advocate for their mentee.
Mentoring Principles
- Connection – Fundamentally, the most important thing is that the mentor and mentee want to work together in mentorship. The relationship must be based on mutual trust and respect.
- Intentional – At the core of mentorship is a focus on understanding and supporting the mentee’s career and/or developmental goals. It’s important for the mentee to be able to articulate their goals to their mentor and for the mentor to be confident in their ability to appropriately guide their mentee.
- Active – The mentor actively provides advice and guidance to the mentee, sharing anecdotes from their own experiences and providing crucial feedback. The mentee receives feedback and takes responsibility for implementing the lessons learned from the mentor.
- Clear – Both the mentor and the mentee must be clear that they are establishing a mentoring relationship and should set appropriate expectations to avoid disappointment. Whether you and your mentor or mentee create a written agreement is entirely dependent on your particular circumstance. For some, this level of clarity is important. For others, it is excessive formality.
- Limited – Mentoring relationships can be fairly long-term, ranging from many months to years. It’s often useful to create an understanding of when the mentoring relationship will end. This can be based on a specific lapsed time, or better yet, the achievement of certain goals. The mentoring relationship is successful if the mentee advances enough to no longer need the support of the mentor.
Success with Mentorship
The formality of the mentoring relationship is based on the needs of the people involved. It can be very formal, with a written agreement of the goals, details of how they will interact, documented progress reviews and formal kickoff and closing meetings. Formal mentoring relationships are most common with company-sponsored programs and when the mentor and mentee do not have a prior relationship.
More informal relationships often occur when a mentor and mentee are acquainted and find that entering a mentoring relationship would be rewarding. They may not create a written agreement on how to conduct the relationship, but they should consider the principles of mentorship and the traits of both the mentor and mentee.
Finally, there can be ad hoc mentoring relationships. These mentoring opportunities tend to occur when the mentor and mentee work closely together. As ad hoc as these interactions may be, it’s important that the mentee agrees to be mentored and it must be in the style the mentee feels is appropriate. Making certain that this understanding is in place mitigates the risk that the mentee feels they are being treated as an inferior, creating resentment between two colleagues.
Mentorship examples on Scrum Teams
It’s rare for formal mentoring relationships to be formed among members of the same Scrum Team. For example, it’s difficult to act as a sponsor to a peer on your team. However, due to the self-managing nature of Scrum Teams, mentoring relationships are continually forming. Mentorship within a Scrum Team is generally ad hoc with one team member with particular prior experience guiding other team members. We sometimes refer to this as taking a mentorship “stance.” For example:
- When a team member has experience that could help their team reach a desired approach or outcome, or support their team’s decision
- When the team is trying a new approach or solution and one team member has prior experience with a similar situation
- A newly hired team member can be mentored by a longer-standing team member
- There is often the possibility of cross-role mentorship when developers, POs or Scrum Masters want to be mentored in other roles
- A team member may mentor others on the benefits of empiricism, self-management and continuous improvement by recounting their prior successes with them
- When a new team is formed, there may be opportunities for mentorship around setting a successful mission, team values and goals
Teams often struggle with how to steer toward or evaluate their successful outcomes. A team member with experience with Evidence-Based Management (EBM) or Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) may be able to guide the rest of the team.