Engagement of team members
I am a Scrum Master for a team I joined about 8 months ago.
During many of our meetings, I'm observing there seems to be a lack of engagement from many team members. Eg. in Backlog Grooming its generally the same people talking every time, whilst about half of the team are not vocal during this meeting (instead a lot of time they look to the PO, myself and the tech lead on the team). In spite of my encouragement to call out that we'd like to hear from everyone, some team members just will not speak up. There's also an issue where people bring laptops to meetings - I was met with resistance when I suggested we not open them. I'm trying a few different things, like mixing up retro formats, speaking token for Standups, 3 Amigos grooming, etc. to try draw out the quieter voices, it seems to be helping a little but in general I feel a little bit lost on what I can do to help them become more engaged.
Has anyone else ever come across this type of problem when they joined an existing team?
First off, is it actually a problem, or is it a percieved problem? Most of these meetings are owned by the developers, with some getting input from the product owner. Have any of these members identified this as a concern? Are meetings going out of timeboxes, sprint goals not being met, or your product owner dissatisfied with velocity? Your role as a Scrum Master is to remove impediments, so does the team identify this as one?
For activity, it can be tough. Not all people are leaders, and not all people can stay focused in meetings. My only suggestion would be to focus on giving everyone a turn to talk, perhaps using the token round-robin instead of passing it to whoever wishes to speak next. People are self-aware of what they do and say. Shrugging something off or saying nothing is a passive action, but a team member is more likely to notice actively saying "I have nothing to add" day after day, and that can indirectly motivate them to change that behavior.
> a lot of time they look to the PO, myself and the tech lead on the team
Whose idea was it to have this "tech lead" role?
@Ian - ahh the "tech lead" role. Where do I start?
This may have something to do with it. The tech lead was a previous Scrum Master of this team and general rock star of the department. People go to him for most things. This has caused in my view a lack of self-organisation on the team. Even worse, when I suggest things we could try or observe process violations, he generally pushes back on most of these things.
If he has SM experience he ought to be cognizant of the problems regarding self-organization, and of the need to draw in others more. Why not lay the problem on the line and ask him what he, as a Scrum professional, thinks he can do about it.
When I come across such a situation, one of the reasons was the Dev team's feeling of "being a pawn" and having no connection to the product development. How are requirements being handled in your team?
@Ian - part of the problem was that although he was a previous SM of the team, he seemed had little regard for the rules of Scrum and it sounded like it was a cargo cult version of Scrum. I think he does care about the developers and the team - I have spoken to him about it - but he sees processes like estimation within the Scrum framework as getting in the way of developers. He has little time for process and doesn't see the value. His opinions easily transfer especially to the junior members of the team.
Re. requirements, the come from our PO. He works quite a lot with the Tech Lead in advance of our grooming meetings.
Re. requirements, the come from our PO. He works quite a lot with the Tech Lead in advance of our grooming meetings.
Why only with the Tech Lead?
A lot of the rest of the team are quite new, so the tech lead has most of the knowledge.
A PO should maximize the value of the work done by the team, and hence work with the team and not just the tech lead.
Does the PO care enough about this to want to change current practice?