Servant Leader or Secretary

Servant Leader or Secretary?

Angela Johnson, PMP, PMI-ACP, CST

Certified Scrum Trainer & Agile Transformation Coach

@AgileAngela

Angela Johnson PMP, PMI-ACP, CST

• 21+ years Information Technology with traditional SDLC and Scrum/Agile

• Scrum Alliance: Trainer Approval Committee (TAC)

Certified Agile Leadership (CAL) Team

• Volunteer Facilitator PMI-MN Agile Practitioner Community

• Based in Minneapolis, MN

2Copyright 2016 Collaborative Leadership Team

The Rise of Agile

2015 HP Survey: Is Agile the New Norm?


The Rise of Agile

2015 HP Survey: Is Agile the New Norm?


“I believe in this

concept but the

implementation is

risky and invites

failure”…

Dr. Winston Royce

“Managing the Development

of Large Software Systems”

“Waterfall”


Why Agile?


2015 VersionOne State of Agile Survey

Why Agile?


• January 1986 Harvard Business Review

• Hirotaka Takeuchi & Ikujiro Nonaka

• How Toyota was getting to market faster and

more flexibly without sacrificing quality

• Teams working in the “Rugby Approach”

• Process is born out of the teams interplay

• Inspired Jeff Sutherland to create “Scrum” and

many other Agile creators

What is Scrum?


What is Scrum?

• Scrum is an adaptive framework for developing

and sustaining complex products

• Scrum is not a methodology nor is it specific to

software development

• Scrum is about people – working together to

deliver the highest possible value early and

often

• Scrum is lightweight, simple to understand but

difficult to master


“Agile”

• Scrum

• XP

• Feature Driven

Development

• Lean Software

Development

• Kanban

• Others?

When you say Agile – What do you Mean?


http://agilemanifesto.org

Agile Software Development Manifesto

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it.

Through this work we have come to value

Individuals and interactions over processes and toolsWorking software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiationResponding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

The Agile Manifesto


Poll Question #1


The ScrumMaster

• Servant Leader to Product Owner, Development Team and Organization

• Responsible for Scrum theory, practices and rules being understood and enacted

• Helps everyone understand which interactions with the Scrum Team are helpful and which ones are not to maximize business value created by the Scrum Team

• Active Facilitator

• Neutral


Poll Question #2


“We do Scrum, but…”

• Our ScrumMaster is also the Product Owner

• ScrumMasters have 3-4 teams in our company

• We don’t have a ScrumMaster

• We don’t dedicate our teams

• There’s no Product Owner

• We don’t hold Sprint Retrospectives

• We don’t hold Sprint Reviews


The Scrum Guide: the rules of the game

• If your company does “Scrum, but”…they are basically saying they are ok with not delivering business value any faster than with Waterfall

• When they remove the very pieces of Scrum that make it successful at delivering more quickly, this is a choice they are making

• The organization is basically signing up for low performing teams and ineffective product development

http://scrumguides.org/


http://scrumguides.org/

The ScrumMaster is not a Secretary

• Coaching the Product Owner on Product Backlog refinement does not mean being the administrative keeper of this artifact

• Coaching the team on self-organization and cross-functionality does not mean taking tasks away from them

• Leading the organization in its Scrum adoption does not mean publishing status reports

• Every conversation isn’t led by the ScrumMaster … including the Daily Scrum


The ScrumMaster is a Coach• Scrum is different

• Traditional ways of doing work focused on utilization

and temporary endeavors called projects

• Scrum focuses on maximizing the delivery of business

value because it approaches that work holistically

• If the organization wants to continue doing work the

traditional way, but using Scrum vocabulary, whose job

is it to coach them on change?

• Coaches don’t push team members out of the way and

grab the ball away from them

• They provide feedback, observations and guidance


The ScrumMaster is Neutral

• ScrumMasters are neutral – they aren’t asserting

opinions about the product or the solution to create

the product

• They are focusing on outcomes, interactions which

includes non-verbal cues

• Good ScrumMasters ask questions, make

observations and provide feedback

• When ScrumMasters get into product or solution

detail, they are not serving, they are not coaching and

they are not adding value


Learned Helplessness• When a ScrumMaster falls into the dysfunction of being

an administrative assistant and doing for everyone,

they are contributing to learned helplessness

• Instead of learning to do for themselves, the people

assume the S.M. will do for them and come to expect it

• This is not empowering – it removes power from the

Product Owner, the Development Team and others in

the Organization

• In order to be effective, ScrumMasters must focus on

interactions and outcomes – they lose focus on their job

when they are relegated to performing data entry


• If the organization is using a lot of Scrummy

vocabulary but not really doing work

differently go on a fact-finding mission

• What was the stated goal or reason to adopt

Scrum?

• Ask to do ‘intentional Scrum’ and compare the

results when really trying it to the old way of

doing work

• Would you start running a marathon without

knowing how long it is or what the goal is?

Intentional Scrum


Don’t Let the Words get in the Way

• That’s not Agile!

• That’s not Scrum!

• In the Real World…

• You’re doing it Wrong

• You’re not doing it Right

• That’s an impediment

• What is the problem that we’re trying to solve?

• In my current reality…

• In our current reality…

• We have a choice to work the old way or try something new

• We have an opportunity to improve the way we work

Instead Of Try These


Join us for an upcoming cPrime

Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM) or Certified Scrum Product Owner ® (CSPO) course:

https://www.cprime.com/training/public/

Angela’s Next 2 Midwest CSMs:

Minneapolis, MN 9/15 & 9/16

West Des Moines, IA 9/22 & 9/23

Want to Learn More?


https://www.cprime.com/training/public/

Questions?
