Do you fit into your role?

Scrum Guide defines different roles in Agile Team but not everyone read Scrum Guide.  Indeed, I have met Scrum Masters and Product Owners who haven't had any idea what is expected from them or do they fit into their role. Some of them have been nominated into that role, some of them have themselves wanted to take that role but with their own interpretation of role and some have taken the role thinking it is their next step in their career.

Once I interviewed candidates for Scrum Master position. I asked candidates what would make them great Scrum Masters and I was amazed how many people thought Scrum Master to be a team leader or supervisor. 

"I know each team member competence so it is easy for me to make sure right people are doing right things."

"I am really good at making progress reports and I know I can make people deliver more."

"You can trust me. I will supervise the team to be the best team."

I have seen how role of Scrum Master have been given to a person who was the most silent team member. Or to a person who wasn't respected at all in the team. I have seen people leaving the role as it was totally something they thought it to be. I have seen people staying in their role even it wasn't any fit for their personality. I have seen Scrum Masters who didn't act like one but made sure that as many as possible outside the team knew that they were Scrum Masters  - it was all about them!

Product Owners are no different story. How can you succeed in your role when you don't have any clue what that role is?  Quite often I have seen people thrown into the role with statement "it is just a minor thing you do - so don't worry, it won't take a lot of your time". What an understatement! 

In my opinion role of Product Owner is even more misunderstood than Scrum Master. Also more often they have been confused what is expected from them. Some of them have been surprised that they are needed more often than in Planning and Review meetings. 

"I don't have time for team members questions. Can't they list them and I answer them when I have time?"

"Why I need to participate all these meetings? I already told the team what they should do."

I have seen Product Owners who didn't want to order the backlog because everything was equally important. Or who couldn't say "no" to any request and promised the team to deliver far more than they can based on their capacity.

We should more consider if the person is right fit for the role instead of putting people into these two key role in Scrum just because they are available. And also ask people to consider are they the right fit and make sure they know what they are expected to do in their role. That would benefit all - people would be happier and organisations would get more value. People need to be educated, they deserve the chance to succeed. Scrum is not rocket science but something is good to know when jumping into it!

But world is weird. I found this video which would help me to give right answers in Scrum Master interview. If I ever interview Scrum Masters again I make sure to listen carefully in case the interviewee has been listening this video.

Online Daily meeting

How to have an efficient Daily meeting with distributed team? If only I know the solution I'd be happier Scrum Master. I have faced different challenges with different teams. As  I haven't ever been Scrum Master for colocated team I can only imagine how different that would be if all team members are in the same room standing around board.

Personally I feel that when we have these meetings online it goes more easily on reporting mode. Team V had habit to report in Daily meetings in alphabetical order. So every day mr A started and mr T ended the Daily. In the beginning I thought that it is okay as it is easier for them because I didn't have any ball or stick to throw for next person. It was clear for them and I also learned their voices better even if they didn't say who was talking.

After a while I started to feel anxious and I wanted to change the way we do it. Biggest reason was that team V was divided into three sub-teams who worked on same issues. Meaning that mr A  and mr N were talking about work they did together. After mr A another sub-team members told about their work and then we got back to starting point when it was mr N's turn. So together with team we agreed that each sub-team is talking one after another and then we move to next sub-team.

I didn't like that way either. We really didn't get enough value out of our meetings. One person told what he did and others said "I did the same". Even I knew that it is not the whole truth. They were not all the time working on same issues.

Index cards

So after a while I changed again. I took index cards into use. I wrote team members names in the cards and before the Daily meeting starts I shuffle the deck of index cards and ask people to talk in that specific order. I also make short notes on each card what is going on. I believed that this way when team members don't know when they turn is they focus on the meeting and listen each other.

In past I coached a team which was really creative how they run their Daily meetings online. For example once a week they had "colour day". One team member selected a colour and after all people wearing cloths having that colour had their turn last one selected a new colour. It was fun. 

No big news - I believe - that I now after a while I feel we need to do something else. Even we have been able to start talking about ongoing work and asking support it is still too often team members reporting to me or to Product Owner.

I have added 15 minutes Meet after -session after our Daily meeting and more and more we are utilising those minutes. Those sessions are more like what I would like team to have. Should I stop having Daily meetings as such and agree that we don't report - we discuss ongoing work. Might that end up being disaster like there would be team members who never say anything? Focus would be on the work.

Or is it irrelevant that team is distributed and the real issue is that we don't know how to have efficient Daily meetings? Do we even know what is the purpose of Daily meeting? What if we stop having Daily meetings? What I have done wrong? Should I step out and let the team V find out the way that works best for them? What if I simply stop participating Daily meetings?

I seem to have more questions than answers. Perhaps some answers can be found from this short video.