Financial Institute Language/ Jargons vs other Institutes
Hello,
I'm trying to learn the difference of the language/jargons/verbiage being used in a financial institute VS a non-financial company. Would a non-financial company use a normal day-to-day language for the most part? I work in a banking and to understand the terminologies/jargons used by the developers/architect, it is as though you MUST have prior banking experience (e.g ACH, NSF, Reversals...). Would a govt ScrumMaster be going through same issue?
I've worked in banking for a little over a yr now and since there were no Confluence Page nor written KT for Scrum Masters, I created one for all of us to use which helped the other two newer Scrum Masters.
I'm sure every company have their own verbiage to use however; I would like to ask if a Financial Institute might have a bit more complicated approach than others?!
This is my first ever post and thank you in advance for your answers
Mahly Haile
Never mind how much of their jargon you understand. Put that issue to one side for the moment. Do they understand the terms of reference of Scrum?
Deep change is likely to be needed in an enterprise if different outcomes are to be achieved, and the Scrum Framework brings a new vocabulary to remind everyone.
Every domain has its own language and terminology. The degree to which you need to understand the domain's terminology depends on who you are interacting with and why, but understanding the domain and any associated constraints is important to provide effective coaching to the team, the organization, and stakeholders.
Thank you both for the reply. I've only been a ScrumMaster for a little over a yr. But I've worked as a Customer Service and Management for 16yrs which helps me communicate with the team and the functional Team (Business).
@Ian Mitchell - Yes the team does understand the terms of reference of Scrum. When they need verification/have questions on scrum rules I assist and coach them. This I'm capable of since I've been educating myself a lot.
I was trying to understand what you meant by "Deep change is likely to be needed in an enterprise if different outcomes are to be achieved...". Do you mean like I've to educate myself to learn their language?
For example, during SOS the architect could ask about where my team is and detail info about QA issue or Microservice we're build etc.. I indicate how much time team would need and if they're making changes to a PR made etc... But usually that's not good enough. The PO is split within 3 teams so he barely attends our meetings (I even asked if there would be another PO but was notified they're unable to hire).
Hello @Thomas , thank you as well for the response.
When interacting with the stakeholders, I understand about 80%; even during UAT when we’re all sitting together and testing. I have a good understanding of technical terms like PR, endpoint- API, merge in different branches, pipeline, rollback, production deployment etc… But my challenge is the other financial terms the developers & the architect uses. Then when asked of an update, I can’t fully provide an answer.
That’s why I was hoping if non-financial institutes uses a normal language (I had to say ‘normal’ for a lack of a better term).
Would a non-financial institute be a better place to start for a new Scrum Master? (Only been a Scrum Master for a little over a yr now, but worked in different places as CS and Mgt for 16yrs which helped me a lot for Scrum Master role).
Why is anyone asking you, a Scrum Master, for an update? If the team is ensuring visibility into their work and synchronizing with stakeholders on a regular basis at the Sprint Review, there should be little need for updates - people can see for themselves how the team is doing. If someone does need more detail, why can't they go right to the Product Owner or Developers? If outside stakeholders are frequently asking for updates, then you, as a Scrum Master, have opportunities to work with both them and the team to improve the transparency and reduce the need for updates.
But changing industries won't help with terminology. Every industry and every company is going to have its own terms and language. Some teams and companies will be better than others at onboarding, but you may not know how good that is until after you start working there. You should strive to learn the domain terminology used by stakeholders for whatever industry or field you happen to be working in to be able to coach those stakeholders on effective interactions with the teams.
Thank you for the detailed information Thomas. This helps a lot.
I will connect with my team in providing better information and transparency.
In the past few months the PO has been stretched with the additional 3rd team where he's barely attending our meetings.
Yes I believe the onboarding process for the current company I work needs much improvement as there was not any definition of the languages used. I have planned on adding that to the ScrumMaster onboarding Confluence Page I created for us all.
Again, thank you for your coaching :)