Find Facilitating Awkward and Difficult
I'm not a new Scrum Master, I have a few years of experience across a few differnet companies of varying sizes, so have a seen a few things.
It's difficult to explain the feeling I get when facilitating Scrum sessions. By facilitating, I mean, me doing the talking, sharing my screen and going throughthe board or retro etc. I feel my stomach fill with butterflies, nerves set in and I worry about how effective I am in the role. I often have thoughts such as "was that good enough?", "do they think im useless and that was a bad meeting?".
I think it comes down to a confidence thing, but can sometimes get so bad, I will miss work, or come up with excuses not to attend the session in fear of judgement. I suffer with imposter syndrome, quite strongly and have done most of my career. I have been a software engineer for 15 years before this too but felt that wasn't my calling, but I also have never felt that effective in this role either.
Really gettign to me and starting to wonder about just resigning. Someone in the current team recently decided to have a go at me and question my value and worth which really hurt and I reflect on this a lot. My manager and PO have zero concerns about my performance and are pleased to have me onboard. I called out this other guy, who was a dev in the team and said his passive aggressive messages dont help and wont be accepted, anyway, that's maybe a separate thing but lmight be relevant.
I just really want to enjoy this role, but find it also might not be my thing. I have delegated to the SM role in 2 of the 3 teams I look after, so sometimes feel I drift around the edges as a coach, not relaly feeling like my value is enough.
Two things stand out to me.
First, what you're describing - doing a lot of talking, screen sharing, walking the team through a board - aren't examples of facilitation. I don't think it makes sense for the Scrum Master to be doing these things. Who does these things depends on the event, but it's far more likely to be the Product Owner or the Developers than the Scrum Master. Facilitation is more about making sure that people stay focused on achieving the goals and objectives of the event within the timebox rather than the administrative work needed to run the event.
Second, you may want to consider talking to a professional about your concerns. It could be related to being stressed, nervous, or anxious. There's no guarantee that changing jobs would do anything if there is something else going on. You may be able to learn tips and techniques for framing your thoughts about yourself and navigating them. But since your colleagues don't seem to have concerns with your performance, I'd look elsewhere for better understanding your problems before resigning.
Thanks Thomas - this is helpful.
