SM speaks for the team ;(

This article is a?series of posts?on the common and difficult challenges many professionals face while implementing?Agile. Agile is easy on process but many of us underestimate the difficulty of making it work.

SM(Scrum Master)'s penultimate goal is to help the team become self-organizing. This means to let the team decide the goal(user stories) and the path to get those done.?SM should enable each team member to have a solid understanding of the vision and the product being built, for them to make the right decisions.?

Many a time SM begins speaking for the team. This should "not" be the case especially when team members are present in the discussion. This happens mainly because of the traditional practices where managers or team leads are responsible and accountable for solutions, tasks, and next steps.

A mature SM should take a step back and allow the team to work "together" and speak for themselves. It is a hard pattern because of the multi-year habits of following the traditional style.?In many cases, other stakeholders and sponsors of the project are also responsible for building this expectation from SM. When asked by the management SM should facilitate the discussion between the management and the team members instead of representing or speaking for them(as much as possible).

?SM can suggest areas to the team to explore but, must step back in the exploration process performed by the team. SM silence is the first brick on the path of self-organization.?

Insecure facilitators(SM in this case) become uncomfortable with the silence. Rather than just waiting for the team/member to step in they have this strong urge to fill the silence. Silence in midst of a strong discussion is powerful. SM should let the silence last as long as required for team members to step in.?

SM should not let any team member dominate however they should also not dominate the team. The GOAL of the SM is to build a highly self-organizing team.

Post 5/(30)?- "agile-twist-n-turns"

Blog site:?https://manishagarwal-agile-twist-n-turns.blogspot.com/2021