How can a scrum master help a team become self-organizing?

The first step to foster self-organization in a team is to make sure that the vision, purpose and high level goals are defined, communicated to the team and understood clearly by everyone. When the "why" is not clear, people won't be able to contribute to the "what" and consequently will need guidance for the "how". A common mistake is to communicate the vision, purpose and high level goals once and expecting the team to remember them. It is crucial to make it a habit to regularly visit the "why" and the high level "what's" to check if we are on track as a team.

For a successful Scrum team, a Scrum Master must confidently model the desired behavior by demonstrating unwavering commitment, openness, respect, and courage, inspiring team members to follow suit. Additionally, regular retrospectives are key to promoting a mindset of continuous improvement. Defining clear roles and responsibilities is crucial to prevent any overlaps or gaps in responsibilities. Last but not least, building trust within the team is essential, as it leads to open communication, increased risk-taking, and a stronger commitment to team decisions and outcomes.

A Scrum Master can help a team become self-organizing by fostering an environment of trust, collaboration, and empowerment. They facilitate open communication and encourage collective decision-making, allowing team members to take ownership of their work and collaborate effectively. The Scrum Master removes obstacles that hinder progress, promotes transparency in goals and expectations, and provides coaching and support to develop the team's skills and confidence. By leading by example and promoting self-organizing behaviors, the Scrum Master empowers the team to take initiative, make decisions autonomously, and continuously improve their processes, ultimately driving success in achieving their objectives.

Helping teams to be super performing and self organizing is the first goal of every Scrum Master when joining a team. Below are few points to consider ; -Ensure you have a goal with the team -Encourage collaboration and communication -Ensure there's psychological safety within the team -Encourage some DevOps practices like Pair programming -Ensure accountability in the team -Encourage continous learning and development cultures... These and many more will transition your team to self Organized team.

A Scrum Master's vision is to cultivate a collaborative and agile culture within the team, ensuring continuous improvement, removing obstacles, and facilitating effective communication to deliver high-quality products within time bounded scenarios.

Wrong. A scrum master helps the team become self-managing by creating transparency around their impediments and how those impediments are effecting the team. The scrum master should be "causing the removal" of impediments - this does not always mean the scrum master removes the impediment. If the SM always fix things, the team will never learn to do it. Likewise, if the SM "shield" the team from distractions, it causes a single point of failure. The SM should work the the team and the organisation to build good interfaces, to make sure input from the organisation can reach the team in a non-disruptive way.

Indeed. The scrum master is the person who needs to be trustworthy, ready to protect the team from external (but also internal) distractions. The team needs to be open minded and sharing their impediments, issues and challenges with the scrum master, if not - the scrum master needs to work toward raising their team to a level which would empower them to self organise and work as one whole.

Removing impediments is indeed a key responsibility of a Scrum Master in helping a team become self-organizing. 1. Facilitate Retrospectives: Use the retrospective meetings to discuss impediments openly. Identify the root causes of challenges and collaboratively find ways to prevent or mitigate similar issues in the future. 2. Act as a Mediator: In situations where conflicts or disagreements may impede progress, the Scrum Master can act as a mediator, helping team members find common ground and resolve issues collaboratively. 2. Prioritize and Escalate: Work with the team to prioritize impediments based on their impact and urgency.

Once impediments are identified, the Scrum Master should collaborate with the team to find effective solutions. This involves facilitating discussions, encouraging open communication, and ensuring that the team collectively addresses challenges. Open communication is crucial for identifying challenges early and addressing them collaboratively.

The Scrum Master's pivotal role in removing impediments involves keen observation, prioritization, and proactive collaboration. By advocating for the team and anticipating potential challenges, they create a proactive approach. Regularly reviewing policies ensures alignment with Agile principles. Collaborating with the team, acting as a facilitator, and prioritizing resources contribute to effective impediment resolution. The Scrum Master shields the team, promotes a learning culture, and continuously monitors for potential challenges. Through clear communication, transparency, and mentorship, they empower the team to handle impediments independently. Celebrating successes and documenting resolutions contribute to a culture of improvement.

Collaboration between team members does not happen naturally (if it happens from the beginning, you are very lucky, like love at first sight ??). But in most cases, you must make an effort to create an environment where members can easily cooperate and are ready to support each other. Specifically, there is a term you may hear called "psychological safety". This is the starting point for healthy cooperation, where each member is not afraid of being wrong, being judged, or daring to voice their opinion on a behavior, a result, or a process that is not good when everyone people work together.

Facilitating workshops and discussions can be challenging in a hybrid working environment. Create an environment where team members feel comfortable engaging with each other. For example, set up a trusted culture of ‘cameras on when possible’ - write this into a team social contract. Don’t be afraid to prompt discussions once in a while to hear from quieter team members or different perspectives.

One of the main scrum master tasks is to bring structure into the art of collaboration. 1. It helps to hear opinion of "quietest" persons in the team, which can balance direction not to blindly follow "loudest" person in the room. - Improves both decision-making transparency and team spirit. 2. It helps to build even stronger bridges between development team and stakeholders, which I see as one of main goals of Scrum as such. - Helps putting effort in right direction and provides stronger sense of ownership to both parties.

the underlying principle of collaboration is the trust. Scrum Master should focus on building the trust among team members right at the beginning of the team forming stage by lots of team building techniques. Due to some limitations in design of a Scrum team which lead to a larger number of members than 10-12 and the sophisticated in the culture, the language, etc. team members will hardly to build up the trust in each other which can hinder the openness towards each other.

Here the role of scrum master and product owner is mixed. The scrum master should collaborate with the team for sharing knowledge. The scrum master needs to know all the team members very well and have appropriate approach for each individual. Knowing the weaknesses and strengths of the team members the Scrum Master can guide the team into self organising.

Learning in agile means always getting better at the things you do. It's about picking up new skills, working well together and using feedback to make things even better. The Scrum Master is like a guide who helps team learn and improve by creating a culture where everyone is encouraged to get better at what they do.

Agile is about the acceptance that the world is changing, and requirements, challenges, technologies are moving with it. To accept this, and to have the energy to learn with all these movements, it's not easy, while our comfortn zone is so cosy. A scrum master should be really focused on these signs, and should provide feedback when a team is in front of a big challenge, where the goal can be reached with the old ways, but staying alive on the market requires new knowledge. The scrum master should empower the team and create space, time and secure enviroment for innovation, learning and experimentation, so the team will never fail adapting the new.

Scrum Master should be aware of the technical expertise of the team and should encourage the team for new learnings, trainings, certifications. As we say that sharing is learning, so at the same time Sharing the knowledge is a must.

The Scrum Master should promote cross-functional learning by encouraging team members to share their expertise. This exchange of skills and knowledge contributes to a more versatile and self-organizing team. The Scrum Master should celebrate learning milestones and achievements. Recognizing the team's dedication to improvement reinforces the value of continuous learning and motivates team members to pursue further advancements.

In Agile methodologies, supporting learning involves: 1. Regular Retrospectives: Use these to reflect on processes and learn from experiences. 2. Cross-Functional Teams: Encourage skill sharing and learning across different roles. 3. Pair Programming: Facilitates knowledge transfer and collaborative problem-solving. 4. Continuous Feedback Loop: Foster an environment of open and continuous feedback. 5. Agile Coaching: Utilize Agile coaches to guide and support team learning. 6. Experimentation Mindset: Encourage trying new methods and learning from outcomes. 7. Learning Backlog: Maintain a backlog dedicated to learning and development activities. 8. Community of Practice: Form groups focused on learning specific skills or topics.

Delegate responsibility: Give team members the flexibility to make decisions within their area of expertise. This shows trust in their abilities and encourages them to take ownership of their work. Provide guidance: Offer support and guidance when needed, but avoid micromanaging. Help team members understand the goals and objectives they need to achieve, and provide them with the information and resources they need to make informed decisions. Encourage open communication: Create an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing their ideas and concerns. Encourage open discussions and invite diverse opinions to ensure that the best decisions are made. Celebrate successes and learn from failures

A Scrum Master empowers a team to become self-organizing by encouraging decentralized decision-making. They foster an environment where team members are confident in making choices collectively and taking ownership of their work. Through guidance and support, the Scrum Master enables the team to become more autonomous in decision-making processes, promoting a sense of responsibility and accountability within the team.

Let the team decide the work load, let the team decide the approach, let the team deliver and they will appreciate you. Scrum Master is a Servant Leader and should listen to the team, and if the decision is even wrong, let the team explore (sometimes). We learn from our failures.

In my experience, getting priorities on the deliverables from PMG and encourage team members to provide estimates on the tasks and plan the sprints based on the priorities and estimates will give the team good clarity to proceed with work. Encourage the team to raise flags when planned tasks are not going as per the estimates. Foster open communication, retrospection and collectively discussing on the things that didn’t go well and come up with solution to avoid it further. Define process, encourage team to adhere to the process rules. Never stop retrospect, change/define new rules to make things better and evolve as better team.

Well Delegation plays a crucial role in empowering the team members. Encourage them to take local decisions so that team take accountability and responsibility for the same. Scrum master can introduce Delegation poker to the team. It's a great tool by management 3.0. It helps team to define how they want to implement or take charge of any decision. Introduction Team Charter: the roles and responsibilities. Why team is doing what they are doing Purpose and values How the team is going to achieve what it needs to achieve. There are various tools which can help team doing the same. Miro, Canvas and so on. Also leadership should delegate the responsibility to the team, they should provide a safe fail environment to the team.

Challenging the status quo to keep moving the team forward is essential. This is because as much as you can empower the team, the team coach or scrum master still needs to help the team to step back and inspect their processes and opportunities for efficiency and effectiveness.

By fostering an environment of trust and empowerment. Encourage open communication and active listening within the team. Promote a collaborative mindset and guide the team in making decisions collectively. Coach team members on Agile principles and practices, allowing them to take ownership of tasks and find their own solutions. By providing support and removing obstacles, the Scrum Master empowers the team to self-organize, increasing productivity and morale.

As Scrum Masters we can foster self-organization within our teams by encouraging communication and collaboration, and providing guidance rather than solutions. Facilitation of Retrospectives can help identify any areas requiring improvement. Empowering our teams to make decisions and holding them accountable will enhance autonomy. Leading by example, coaching, removing impediments, and creating a safe space for trust to grow will all contribute to a team's self-organizing abilities.

Modelar os valores é demonstrar os princípios ágeis e os valores do Scrum no comportamento diário. Como líder servil, o Scrum Master deve exemplificar transparência, respeito, coragem, foco e comprometimento, inspirando a equipe a seguir esses ideais. Isso inclui n?o apenas aderir a esses valores em decis?es e a??es, mas também promover um ambiente onde a equipe seja encorajada a internalizá-los e vivenciá-los em sua rotina de trabalho, fortalecendo a cultura ágil e colaborativa.

This is probably one of the hardest things to do, because values are a very individual topic. I would recommend inviting the team to describe the values together, and also to invent "mantras" or "catch phrases" that everyone can get reminded of regularly

Do it on your own way! Agile and scrum is about chaning, and reacting to it. You can't copy anyones practice, if you really want to be self-organized, read the principles and start translating to your reality. Don't try the dress that's not your size, maybe you'll need to sew you own, but it worth the time. We did so, and I really enjoy the hike, and there more to go! :)

None have mentioned or spotted the major impact/influence people in position of authority and leadership have on teams. If we want the team to self-organise (or I would simply say as have autonomy to make decisions), leaders need to stop making decisions for them. Leaders provide space, opportunity and capabilities for teams to do so. So, don't focus only on teams, but focus on environmental factors like leadership impact too.

Self organizing team is journey and it takes times. As a scrum Master you coach team to believe on their strength and how their strength are stepping stone in teams success. The magic starts happening when team realised their potential and understand star on horizon.

It helps if the Scrum Master has a technical background. When I worked as a scrum master I would notice when there was a need for better collaboration of a technical nature, i.e. between backend and frontend team members, and I would schedule a meeting with the relevant engineers - where I would encourage that they get on the same page re: things like front end-back end integration, improving their devops pipeline, and all the other issues that come up in the course of a project. While I certainly never told the engineers how to architect things etc, my background as a senior engineer and architect over the years allowed me to facilitate the conversation and gain the trust of technical team members

Help the team to conduct self-assessment about their morale, using a team health check. It's a systematic approach used to assess the overall effectiveness, well-being, and productivity of a team. Think of it as a regular check-up for your project team, similar to how one might visit a doctor for a physical examination. Team health checks are typically conducted through a combination of self-assessment, team discussions, and sometimes, external facilitation. The results are used to create action plans, set goals, and implement strategies for improvement.