Do the Agile Coaches or Scrum Masters need to be firm?
Hi Everyone,
I am being engaged in a client in mobile space. I was being initially brought as an Agile Coach & then i was an iteration manager(scrum master) also for one of the teams.
I have seen in this space, it is suffering from poor delivery. No definition of done, estimations based on gut feeling. Team big as 20 people which i was trying
to split into two, having 9 members in each team to be truly cross functional team. The team is definitely not at all mature for self organisation at this moment. There are lot of strong behaviour issues from team members as well. I have tried a-lot of behaviour coaching to a limit as well. Though i totally believe in self organisation and i have seen the decisions are going wrong. One of the recent decision from the team was during sprint planning, we know what people are needed for go-live date and we don't need to estimate anything. After that they formed their own team, where the composition was, all testers in one team and only two developers. The other team got all developers and BA's.Obviously the other team still don't have proper testing skills to do something end to end. Being a agile coach and scrum master, i strongly thought, team needed to estimate and properly plan their go-live tickets and on other hand, the formation of team which was totally imbalanced was incorrect too.
My only question is, i strongly feel being an Agile coach, we need to have balance, where to be firm on practices and convince the team with logic, rather then going the other way around. What are the suggestions and thoughts over the same?
Thanks,
Beenish
I was being initially brought as an Agile Coach & then i was an iteration manager(scrum master) also for one of the teams.
To be “firm” in Scrum, it is usually necessary to be firm on the vocabulary used to describe it.
Why do you think your role was described as an “iteration manager” rather than a Scrum Master? Do you think this may be related to how agile practices are interpreted and valued within this organization? What appetite do management have for Scrum and for the rigor you hope to establish?
Hi Ian,
The organisation initiative as, they are moving away from scrum masters. They want iteration managers having deep knowledge of scrum and act as delivery leads as well. Though i was trying to tell the audience IterationManager=Scrum Master in this particular situation. The management is pretty date driven. Though they are trying to implement scrum at the team level for 20 sprints :). I was brought in the 17th Sprint as an agile coach and that's what i was trying to actively coach. True practices and vocabulary. Then one of the scrum masters resigned and they wanted me to be the scrum master in the team + also an Agile coach for the program. I have been observing this team failing to deliver over sprints and sprints. The main problem is no planning and over commitment. This team does not have a velocity. They do dev done, test done sprints. That's why when i came in, i am trying to advocate and promote for minimum viable product, a potentially shippable product. I am putting strong emphasis on sprint planning and obviously, we need to understand our capacity before we reach the sprint planning. Team is saying, we don't need capacity planning. Point is, if you feel for long, team is not taking right decisions and not learning, we need to figure out root of problem. May be it was very early that management thought team is ready for every decision making. That's where i am saying, do we need to be firm in the right way about practices? I think so we should. Though i am open to thoughts about same.
Thanks,
Beenish
If I was in your situation I would begin by putting transparency over the Scrum Framework and what each element means. This would be established for everyone including senior stakeholders. Scrum’s vocabulary matters. There will need to be transparency over “Done”, the strength of pull for increments of release-quality each Sprint, and any deficit for release. Problems must be seen clearly by everyone before they can be fixed, and the words we use to describe the situation are critically important.
The “deep knowledge” of Scrum, which the organization claims to value, does not entail so-called iteration leads, or delivery leads, or a culture of date-driven planning which evidently leads teams to overcommit. Management will need to be robust in its sponsorship for Scrum, and to establish a sense of urgency for it, if they expect the present organizational gravity to be overcome.