Is lack of understanding of Scrum a systemic issue?
I am trying to get clarification on what a systemic issue is and perhaps get some more examples. From what I understand, teams or organizations that do not have a good understanding of scrum, its roles, events and rules is a systemic issue if left as is.
By facilitating learning, through teaching and coaching, in my opinion, a Scrum Master is removing an impediment and also promoting scrum.
Am I incorrect in this understanding? If I am, then, why?
Good question. I think it's fair to say that most implementations of Scrum don't have a good understanding of Agile.
I think applying Scrum is the easy part but mastering it is hard because Scrum makes it easy to shed light on problems the teams/organizations face. The problems themselves may or may not be systemic issues. Some may be mindset, others culture/process related.
My interpretation of a systemic issue is one where the implementation of Scrum needs to be customized to fit the current needs of the team/organization.
One interesting avenue that might be worth exploring is the CDE (Containers, Differences, and Exchanges) model as it relates to Human Systems. https://www.hsdinstitute.org/assets/documents/5.1.1.3.cde-30apr16.pdf
The general idea is that we as humans will self organize (formally or informally) into containers. Certain differences we as people have between containers will impact the types of exchanges we have with one another and will result in the emergence of behavioral patterns.
Something as simple as differences in physical location could be a container that significantly impacts the way a team or department communicates with each other.
To tie this back to your question....
I believe what you're describing could be a systemic issue as it relates to human systems.
Perhaps there's differences between certain containers within an organization (senior leadership, developers, agilists, etc.) in how they understand Scrum or success as it relates to Agile software development that are impacting the exchanges between groups.
What patterns do you see? You may even see these differences between your Scrum Team itself...perhaps they're identifying and grouping as developers, testers, analysts despite the Scrum Framework only recognizing development team member. This is a common one that I often see impact how the team exchanges information with each other.
From what I understand, teams or organizations that do not have a good understanding of scrum, its roles, events and rules is a systemic issue if left as is.
That could be the root cause of a systemic issue, such as weak product ownership or undone work for example. When a problem is systemic, it means there is an underlying reason for it which has to be addressed. It can’t be resolved in an ad-hoc way by reactive fire-fighting, because it would just resurface somewhere else. Executives can struggle to distinguish between systemic and occasional impediments because they often lack actionable metrics or are unable to interpret them
When a problem is systemic, it means there is an underlying reason for it which has to be addressed
@Ian Mitchell, just to clarify that my understanding is correct, timeboxes for the events not being met, teams not wanting retrospectives, Sprint Planning turns into refinement etc, essentially many of the anti-patterns are all systemic issues but lack of understanding of scrum is not a systemic issue but could be the underlying cause.
Would it be a correct statement, If I said that by teaching and coaching teams, and the organization on Scrum, (so that the above issues are gradually eliminated) I am facilitating their ability to be more agile and shift their mind from a rigid or incorrect interpretation of scrum?
It sounds reasonable. Teaching and coaching teams and the organization on Scrum can cause change in the system itself, and thereby allow systemic issues to be dealt with.