Demonstrating Agile Values

Few months ago I took on coaching a team, this team was already part of the Agile@Scale transformation journey in my organization and they shared their self assessment of their agility and identified the areas they wanted to be coached on. With this background, team and I agreed on to start with the backlog they have and evolve the backlog as the transformation progresses to adapt to reality on the ground. As team had undergone training's couple of months ago, they were not keen on training sessions, we took on meeting everyday for 15 mins to train/coach the team on transformation backlog right after their daily scrum and then intervene on their day to day activities as needed.

In-spite of the team claiming that they are a good in being agile and most of the scrum framework, I insisted on starting the first day with team generating and sharing on Agile values. My intention was to further strengthen their foundation of Agile values and principles. Team members did generate Agile values and said we are already doing this. On asking for instances of where they have demonstrated the values, to begin with Individuals and interactions over process and tools, few members shared examples of individuals reaching out to other members directly who are nearby or over phone to take support than relying on mail or Jira. When asked where they have NOT demonstrated this value, initially team said there is no such instance, but then one person shared one instance. Apparently since few weeks the team's Scrum Master has put down a process that daily by 4 PM everyone in the team have to send a status update mail to Scrum Master and that was becoming a burden for them as they didn't see value in it and slowly the sharing became blaming the Scrum Master with others also joining to share on this instance, it deviated to lack of backlog refinement, knowledge on different modules and many other aspects, even Scrum Master started defending her actions on this process. Interrupting the conversation, I asked the team on did to check with Scrum Master on the need for this process, what purpose will it solve? Response was that Scrum Master just wants it. Created with team the need to operate with respect, trust as a team and collective ownership of decisions taken, and to bring in individuals and interaction to this aspect and one of the team member asked Scrum Master on the need for this process. Scrum Master shared that, her manager wants the status by end of the day and since she leaves to home by 5 PM, hence this process!

Saw the need to train Scrum Master and Manager in defining boundaries, not to step over decision making of the team or impose anything on team and the need & means to monitor status, added that to the transformation backlog, also on addressing some of the dysfunctions that came out of this conversation, especially lack trust, respect for everyone in the team. Giving another opportunity to team to bring forth individuals and interactions now on this topic, team did discuss and agree with Scrum Master that daily scrum is sufficient for sharing about progress and any support needed, only in case of high priority, impactful ones, individuals will get in communication with Scrum Master thru the day as needed in person or over call if working from home!

Instead of 15 mins, we ended up taking more than 30 mins, but it was well worth to begin with, get a glimpse of the kind of transformation this team needed, and start with small victory in team identifying and willing to take on demonstrating agile values in their ways of operating.

During team training's/coaching, Agile Values and Workshop is quite useful and effective, but I got appreciate in a whole new way the simplicity and sourceful-ness of agile manifesto - the values and principles.

I intend to share my experiences, learning's, success, failures and what i discovered for myself as a coach, looking forward for your views, thoughts and experiences, invite you to comment on the topic.