Beyond Removing Impediments:Scrum Master as Team Coach

Image by Pictofigo

Allison Pollard

Firm believer in continuous improvement and the power of teams to affect change

Cherie Silas

Strong desire to help people arrive at the place they define as success in both personal and professional life

Today’s presentation

• What does “Scrum Master asTeam Coach” mean?• What is a high performing team?• What tools can you use to coacha team to become high performing?

The Scrum Master role

• VERY different from being a Project Manager• Responsible for ensuring Scrum is understood

and followed• Servant leader

The Scrum Master acts as the Team’s coach! Image by Pictofigo

Building a high performing team

• Self-organizing• Cross-functional• Accountable as a team• Striving for AWESOME

The Scrum Master reinforces the “team” mentality

Images by Pictofigo

The High Performance Tree

couragefocus

commitm

ent openness

respect

Committed

to team

success

Self-organizingOwns its

decisions

& commitments

Trust motivates

them

Constructive disagreement

Believe they can solve any problemConsensus-driven

Empowered

Team that

can do

anything

Room for team & individual growth

Get astonishing results

Get the right business value

Get business

value faster

Activity:

• Think about your current team

• Add more roots to the values that are present

• Color in the fruits for the benefits that are present Images by Pictofigo

How to use the tree with your team

• Project kick-offs– Review the values,

characteristics and benefits– Define working agreements

• Retrospectives– Have the team evaluate the

strength of the values, benefits in the team

Images by Pictofigo

Coaching skill: asking questions

• Not about eliciting more information for the Scrum Master• Provoke the team to think, feel, or react differently about the issue at hand

The Scrum Master’s job is to stay curious

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What makes a question Powerful?

• Open-ended• Move the team forward to what it desires

rather than ask for justification• Not leading to a particular answer• Reflect active listening

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Activity:

• Partner up; one person will talk about his/herteam• Other person picks 3 powerful question cards.During the conversation, only ask these questions• To start the conversation, ask: Where is your team weakest? Image by Pictofigo

What did you learn?

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Scrum Master as Team Coach

1. Use metaphors to describe abstract concepts and feelings2. Use powerful questions to invite discovery, clarity, and action

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Practice these tools with your team to coach them to high performance

Resources

• Coaching Agile Teams by Lyssa Adkins• Images from Pictofigo, www.pictofigo.com

Contact

allison.pollard@improvingenterprises.com@allison_pollard

cherie.silas@improvingenterprises.com @cheriesilas

Images by Pictofigo