How Expertise is Developed Deliberately?

We have one objective to develop many great Scrum Masters. They should be capable to drive the complex scrum team. and get the outcome from each team without considerable interference from anyone. 

We were studying to establish the framework through which can work out this objective.

We considered of adopting Deliberate practice.

What is that?

Deliberate practice: A specific type of practice that is purposeful and systematic. While routine practice might include mindless repetitions, deliberate practice demands concentrated attention and is conducted with the precise goal of enhancing performance.

Ericsson (2016) says no one has talent.

Ericsson has taken an example, London’s taxi drivers, who have to know their way around without using navigation systems. Their licensing exam requires an incredible amount of geographical knowledge, including the ability to find the shortest route from A to B within a ten-kilometer radius of Charing Cross as well as knowing the exact location of more than 20,000 landmarks and places of public interest in the area.

This takes years of practice, and appears to involve measurable physical changes in the brain. MRI scans of working drivers who have passed the exam show sharply increased activity in the back of the hippo-campus, which is competent for navigation.

In K. Anders Ericsson’s The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance, the 4 elements of deliberate practice.

1. Motivation: You must be motivated to strive the necessary energy and effort to improve your performance.

2. Clear Design and Objectives of the Practice Session: Your practice session should take into account your current level of understanding. The objectives and design of the practice session should be easily understood after a short instruction period. 

3. Immediate Feedback: You should obtain immediate informative feedback and knowledge of results of your performance.

4. Repetition: You should frequently perform the same or related tasks.

Deliberate practice is higher than simple repetition.

Repeating something over and over won’t necessarily help you develop a nuanced skill.

Deliberate practice is about pushing yourself, failing, and learning. It should be uncomfortable. If it’s not, your brain will ultimately automate the process, which doesn’t enable growth.

“The climb to great achievement is long and arduous, requiring lots of preparation, support and perseverance” -Dweck  

How this has been converted into creation of few great Scrum Masters?

As a part of deliberate practice, we also ensured that Scrum Masters applies 70-20-10 concept.

Hands-on experience (the 70 percent) is the most valuable for members because it enables them to identify and refine their job-related skills, make decisions, address challenges and collaborate with influential people such as bosses and mentors within work settings.

Employees learn from others (the 20 percent) through an array of activities that include social learning, coaching, mentoring, collaborative learning and other methods of interaction with peers

The formula holds that only (the 10 percent) of professional development optimally comes from formal traditional course ware instruction and other educational events, a position that typically surprises practitioners from academic backgrounds.

We ask all the Scrum Master to reflect on these questions

• Do you have the motivation to continue the defined goal? Do you genuinely choose this goal? 
• Do you demand to be the best in the world or just good enough to work out something successfully without distressing yourself? 
• Have you determined a practice schedule you have the discipline to stand with until you accomplish your ambition? 

10,000-hour rule is to become an expert in any field.

Those 10,000 hours won’t prepare you an excellent performer if you let automatically creep into your practice.

You’ve to continue practicing deliberately. You’ve to keep searching for improvements, stretching your limits little bit every time.

We ensured that all of our Scrum Master is practicing all these deliberately.

Chandan Patary is the author of The Agilist Guidebook, this book enables any change agent to help organizational agile transformation smoothly. This book has 5 chapters, 88 stories, 55 mindmaps, 6 case studies, 30 pictures, 160 quotes, 288 pages and 100 Rs, a 4 years journey into this book. He has composed seven different free e-books available for download at Slideshare. He has written 445+ blogs in LinkedIn. He has presented 13+ seminars as a speaker in numerous conferences. He has uploaded 30+ presentation at Slide share on diverse topics. He has written 20+ technical papers in various national and foreign journals. He has earned many rewards in all the enterprises he has served for. He has received PM World Journal, 2017 Editor’s Choice Awards for the paper “Increasing Business Agility through Organizational Restructuring and Transformation”.