Yes, Scrum is Easy to Understand but Difficult to Master

Prologue

From the most recent feedback I was given by the teams I currently work with, I noticed a common theme emerging. Although they did highlight a variety of positive points, the one thing that stood out was how good they felt — how good they felt about being part of that team, the sense of appreciation they felt for the features they have been able to deliver, and how much they enjoyed interacting with me and other team members in doing what they do every day.

I have been working as a scrum master for close to four years now. Back in 2017, I started to wear the scrum master ‘hat’ while continuing with the business analyst role I held at the time. That gave me the first glimpse of being a servant leader whose responsibility was to protect the team from any distractions so that they could focus on the outcomes they had committed to. With the experience I gathered during the first two years, I was successful in securing a full-time position as a scrum master. 

I still remember how tense my interactions with the team members were when I first started working with them. It seemed almost impossible to get my message across to them about the different aspects of the scrum framework and the value of having various ceremonies. During meetings, they wouldn't make eye contact with me, they wouldn't respond to my questions, and, whenever they did, it would be a very short 'yes' or 'no' — at times, I even suspected I was invisible. To make matters worse, whenever I sought feedback on my contribution to the team, it fell on deaf ears almost every time. And when someone got me into a room to provide some kind of feedback, it was about something I had done to offend someone or something I did to push the envelope too hard, too fast.

In short, the contrast between the feedback I received then and the feedback I receive now could not be any starker.

The interesting self-observation, however, is that my intention to help my team, do the right thing by each team member, and ensure we have a healthy environment in which to deliver successful outcomes has not changed since those early days. So, what is different now? What has changed in me that enabled me to make such a positive impact on my teams? What has changed the way my team members perceive me during my interactions with them?

These are the questions I have been mulling, searching for answers, during the last few weeks. All of a sudden, early this week, I had an epiphany while I was strolling through The Scrum Guide1 and stumbled across a statement on page 3 . . .

The Golden Statement

‘Scrum is lightweight, simple to understand, difficult to master’

This is the statement that so eloquently captures the reasons why so many scrum masters find it challenging to strike a spark and create the required connection with their teams when they first start working, in spite all the noble objectives they set upon themselves and their teams.

Let's dissect the three parts of the above statement and take a deeper look at each of them.

1. Lightweight

The entire Scrum Guide1 (including the cover and table of contents) contains just 19 A4 pages. That literally makes it lightweight. The theory of scrum is derived from empirical process control theory that consists of transparency, inspection, and adoption. Empiricism states that knowledge comes from what has been tested and validated and using that knowledge to make more informed decisions in the future.

Scrum employs an incremental process through which work is completed iteratively, with continuous planning, building, and reviewing, prompting adjustments with each iteration. This process aims to improve and optimise predictability while controlling and reducing risks associated with the delivery of outcomes.

2. Easy to Understand

If you read through The Scrum Guide1, you will notice that the crux of the whole framework is formulated using three ‘roles’, four ‘ceremonies’, and three ‘artefacts’ that stand around the scrum team. The rules that bind them together explain the interactions between these three entities to create an empirical process.

This makes the scrum framework one of the easiest frameworks to read, remember, and understand.

As scrum is a framework that is simply described and easily grasped, in my opinion, these positive attributes lead most of us to believe that we have 'mastered' scrum once we understand the text literally and manage to successfully answer the questions in the certification exam.

This misplaced belief leads most of us to conclude that ‘I am a great scrum master’, and we jump out in excitement, waving the scrum values as flashy words, enforcing the scrum rules to a tee, hanging onto to various half-baked workflow measurements, and continuously judging our fellow team members on their scrum knowledge.

Becoming a great scrum master takes a whole lot more than simply understanding what is written in The Scrum Guide1. It takes a tremendous amount of experimentation with and learning from, different approaches, failures, and self-reflection over a long period of time. It requires you to interact with many different individuals, challenges, organisational structures, and perhaps even product domains. It requires you to develop empathy towards your team members and the circumstances in which they operate. It requires a deeper understanding of the values defined in The Scrum Guide1 to encourage your teams to join you on the journey to deliver, reflect, and continuously improve. This is not because you advocate for them but because they are genuinely inspired and motivated by what you share and can see the benefits for themselves.

This is what makes scrum difficult to master.

3. Difficult to Master

Let's take a look at the dictionary definition2 of the word ‘master’:

? adjective: having or showing very great skill or proficiency;

? verb: acquire complete knowledge or skill in (a subject, technique, or art).

Considering the above definitions, we can arrive at a more descriptive definition of a scrum master:

An individual who has acquired in-depth knowledge of the scrum framework and has a deep understanding of its values.

In general, our personal values define the choices (both words and actions) we make when we are presented with a challenge or problem to solve. It is practically impossible to learn and prepare in advance for every challenge or situation that life might throw at us. The same goes for what is explained in The Scrum Guide1 — it does not explain how a scrum master is supposed to approach teams with all the possible characteristics, operate in all the possible circumstances and develop all the possible kinds of products. Instead, it provides a set of values.

The scrum values provide the moral compass from which a scrum master can draw guidance and respond to situations in a manner that demonstrates the value of doing something in a particular way. This is what differentiates a person who will be able to clearly explain the fundamentals of the framework and inspire people to see the value of adapting the framework to their ways of working from a person who merely knows scrum.

Just as important as the scrum master promoting these values and expecting the team to practise them, it is also important that the scrum master is led by these values to bring the team together to do what they do best while feeling their best.

This allows the scrum master to be part of the journey within the team and helps that person obtain the buy-in, rather than simply being an adviser who is there to tell the team what they should and should not do.

Open Mind: Every team is different. Embrace each of them with an open mind. You might not necessarily be able to successfully solve a problem in the same way as you have in the past. Since you will end up with a brand-new team every time a new team member joins, or an existing team member leaves, reminding yourself to be open to suggestion and innovative ways to tackle challenges is a great way to master your scrum.

Open Intentions: Always share the ‘why’ with your team. The most critical factor in the success of any change or improvement you may suggest is the buy-in from your team. And what better way to get that than by explaining the reasons for doing it? Being upfront about the reasons and the envisaged benefits will trigger conversations among the team and will allow you (as scrum master) and the team members to further fine-tune the proposed approach so that everyone feels they are part of it when it is implemented.

Open Metrics: Measurements are a key part of any high-performing team. This is how the team can constantly evaluate if they are on the right path and if the changes they have put in place are delivering the intended outcomes or not. The best way to keep your team motivated and energised on an initiative they agreed upon is to define measurements collaboratively and make them clearly visible and easily understood. Review these measurements regularly with the team and continue the dialogue on how they could be tweaked to better assess the results.

Focus on Team Members: A team is made up of individuals, and every individual is different. The character of the team is an amalgamation of the characteristics of these individual team members. As much as focusing on the sprint goal and the backlog, the scrum master must focus on the individuals and the circumstances each of them is in. Understanding their cultural backgrounds, their personal and professional journey thus far, and their individual aspirations and goals for the future will allow you to be a lot more effective in guiding the whole team towards maintaining a healthy and productive dynamic.

Focus on Product Owner: I have always felt that a happy product owner leads to a happy team. The fact that the product owner and the teamwork extremely closely in a scrum team calls for healthy and open interaction between the two parties in order to cultivate a supportive environment. By understanding the circumstances, challenges, and situations the product owner faces from his/her stakeholders, sponsors, and other influential people across the organisation, while supporting him/her on those issues will most probably create a 'paying it forward' culture within the team. This will reduce the friction between the product owner and the development team, which is felt from time to time.

Focus on the Challenges: One of the most valuable contributions a great scrum master can make is to have a clear focus on the challenges and blockers thrown at the team every now and then. By focusing on them and working with relevant stakeholders to have them removed will naturally enable the team to focus on the sprint backlog and the sprint goal.

Respect Current Achievements: As scrum masters, we often tend to engage our 'advice-giving monster' and straightaway jump into stating what the team must do. However, this often leads to a lack of cooperation from team members and even resistance at times. Respect the team for what they have achieved thus far and what they're doing right now. Explore more and more in order to understand the reasons for what they are doing, rather than switching into adversarial mode simply because you have concluded that they have no idea what they're doing.

Respect Individuals: Each person in the team brings a unique personality and set of skills into the team. When you effectively tap into those, it can be invaluable to the way the team comes together to have fun, while delivering awesome outcomes for the organisation. When you see an individual behaving in a manner that's not conducive to a healthy team, reach out and have a respectful conversation to explore and work with him/her on an action plan aimed at overcoming the situation.

Respect the Status Quo: Sometimes situations are much more complicated than they seem on the surface. This is very important if you are working with a team that's part of a large organisation. The processes they are part of, the systems they use, and the reporting lines across the organisation could be complicated, marred with historical incidents, internal politics, individuals with hidden agendas, and egos. Be aware of the history of the organisation and its traditional methodologies before you go jumping in and slapping The Scrum Guide1 in their faces. Instead, reach out to the teams outside of your own, and build close relationships in order to understand their side of the story and to work together on a set of actions that will bring small but effective improvements that would benefit all.

Courage to Have Tough Conversations: Life as a scrum master at work could be full of challenges. Dealing with difficult individuals, tools, and applications that are not fit for purpose, test environments that are not reliable and complete, lack of response from depending teams, and absence of clarity on priorities are just a few. A great scrum master needs to have the courage to take on these challenges and find the best way forward to overcome them by having tough conversations with individuals and teams. Trying to hide away from these challenges or pretending that they don't exist will only exacerbate the situation. Approach these conversations with respect, and have an open mind about the outcomes you might end up agreeing upon.

Courage to Protect the Team: One of the best ways a scrum master can be effective and earn the trust of the team is by genuinely protecting them from unwarranted distractions. This will allow the team members to feel that they don't have to constantly bat away requests that land on their desk, that they don't have to wrangle between conflicting priorities, and that they don't constantly have to switch context. The team will feel that their scrum master genuinely values the importance of meeting the sprint goal and respecting team members to get on with what they have committed to.

Courage to be Accountable: As scrum masters, we preach to our team members about taking accountability for their actions. The best way to get them on board with that is for you to lead by example. Don't limit your engagement to being a coach or mentor who will leave the ultimate delivery and the productivity goals entirely up to the team. That will only widen the distance between your team and you. Develop empathy towards your team and truly believe that you are one of them. Take ownership of the outcomes and have a genuine stake in them.

Courage to get to the Next Level: This is where I feel that a scrum master plays the role of a parent. Parents are always eager to get their children to fare better in their lives. They want their children to achieve greater goals as they grow. A great scrum master will always explore the personal growth of individual team members and utilise that growth towards the greater good of the team and the outcomes it delivers.

Commitment to the Team: As much as scrum masters aim to make the team part of their journey, they need to be part of the team's journey. This commitment will allow team members to build trust and feel comfortable. More importantly, it will allow team members to be open and authentic when it comes to discussing their emotions and the challenges they face. It will make the process of identifying effective steps to overcome them easy and practical.

Commitment to Continuous Improvements: A scrum master must commit to the improvements that the team agrees upon. You should support the team in every way possible by being their voice across the organisation in order to resolve the challenges they face. This is particularly important in relation to improvements that require wider tribe or organisational assistance in order to be successful. The action items that come out of a ‘retro’ need to be properly planned and followed through with the same level of attention as any other item on the product backlog. This is extremely important in keeping your team motivated to continuously improve what they do and how they feel about it.

When our development teams have to wrestle with development tools, test frameworks, requirement gathering techniques, and deployment tools and environments, we, the scrum masters, need to look after the people who are part of those development teams. We have to deal with people with different attitudes, cultural backgrounds, upbringings, and who have different values and principals in their own lives. We need to constantly adapt to individuals with different personalities and traits, cooperate with them to make them feel their best, and empower them to do their best. We have to deal with aspects that cannot be programmed, refactored, debugged, or redeployed. 

The only way we can give ourselves the best chance to succeed, and thereby help our teams to succeed, is to continue with the journey of deepening our understanding of the values defined in The Scrum Guide1.

Epilogue

As for me, my feedback wasn't without areas that require improvement. I'm nowhere near perfect. As with most aspects of our lives, being a great scrum master is not a destination, rather it is a journey.

I will continue to reflect on every piece of feedback I have received, together with my own reflections on how I operate today and continue to make small but effective changes to become an even better scrum master tomorrow.

References

1 — The Scrum Guide, November 2017 edition was referred to at the time of writing this article. An updated version of The Scrum Guide has since been published in November 2020.

2 — Definition of the word 'master' was referred to on Google where the actual definition is provided by Oxford Languages.