Talk, don't report!

English is not my native language. Even though I think I am pretty good in English I have my weak points. One of them is my ability to handle numbers. For some odd reason it takes time for me to translate in my head numbers from English to Finnish. And other way around - when I talk, I always think numbers in Finnish and translate them in my head into English. 

But at the same time when this is my weak point I can utilize it. Quite often when I have started to work with new Scrum Team I have noticed in Daily meetings team members are not talking what they are working. 

Instead of telling "I have started building database connection. I discussed with system team and we found out that ..." I hear "I continue with JIRA-123". 

Instead of "I have deployed code to test environment. All unit tests passed and this change can be tested further as soon as we have a connection to external test environment" I hear "JIRA-223 is now ready to be tested."

Every time when I ask them to start talking instead of reporting I hear WHY. Quite often team members have been totally fine with this approach and don't understand why they should be telling anything more than JIRA issue id. So, I have learned - I don't ask them talk or stop to report. I just ask them to stop using numbers and explain them why it is difficult for me to understand what it is going on. In the beginning they change they way of talking in daily to make me, their Scrum Master, happier but in the long run they have noticed and mentioned sometime later during Retrospective that actually Daily meetings give more value to them with this habit. Amazing! Specifically I remember how I struggled with teamV and how quickly they learned not to use numbers and if I ever referred something with JIRA issue id team reminded me all together "NO NUMBERS!"

Another antipattern I have seen with teams is to utilize JIRA board during meeting in the way that only those team members talk who have issues assigned to them. When Daily meeting starts team member who is assigned to top issue In Progress tells what he has been doing. In that way they have run through In Progress issues - only persons talking are the ones to whom issues are assigned. 

This happened also when I joined teamG. After a few Daily meetings I realized that there are many team members who don't ever say anything during the meeting. JIRA as tool allows issues to be assigned only one person at the time. Especially our business experts and qa specialist worked in pairs and also often issues were assigned to developers. They got totally surprised when I one morning said:

"Today we do this differently. I have this ball here. I now throw the ball and the one who catch it start talking. When you are ready you throw the ball the next one."

Silence. Then the person with ball said "I don't anything assigned to me in the board." 

"BINGO! Exactly. You don't have anything assigned to you but we are interested to hear what you have been doing, what you plan to do and is there anything preventing you to do so."

This was beginning for something amazing. This team started to talk and we started to get things done quicker, we found out impediments faster and team members started to support each other much more than earlier.  The impact was even bigger I ever imagined when introducing this practice to the team. 

Daily meeting is not a status meeting. Team members are not reporting anything to me. Daily meeting is the possibility to share and learn. When I hear any team member saying "I don't have anything to report" I put note to myself in my notebook. Next time I have 1:1 meeting with that team member I take this up and explain what is the purpose of the meeting and why they should never consider to be obligated report anything to me. 

 

 

How you fulfill your days?

Most of my friends don't work in IT. Therefor it is some time difficult explain what I do as a Scrum Master. And when tell about my daily work some of them say "so you are kind of a project manager".  What can you say?

Usually we don't talk so much work when I am with friends. We all have so different jobs and free time is not for talking about job. 

But some time ago I met a new person and we started discuss what it is we do beside having dogs of same breed. And when I told that I am a Scrum Master she suddenly said "so am I". For a short moment I was happy: finally someone who knows what I do. But then she continued "What else do you do?"

"What do you mean? I am full time Scrum Master." She looked, honestly, surprised and told that she has double role and in her company there is no full time Scrum Masters. 

Of course, I reflected after that discussion what it is that makes it possible for me work full time Scrum Master. What are my days like? How do I fulfill my days? What is my daily agenda?

First of all, I am perhaps little bit over-organized. I like to-do lists, I keep notes, I write down things. I feel more confident when having my notes with me. I always have my note book and pen with me. I feel naked without them. I am almost like addicted.

When I start planning next PI (Program Increment), 

first thing I do is write down Iterations time line. 

That helps me in planning coming 12-14 weeks. 

If SAFe terminology is not familiar to you, visit Scaled Agile Framework home page. 

Before each meeting I check what we have in agenda, is there anything I need prepare or any other action I should take. All my meetings have clear agenda and goal. I ask people to read my invitations. I want them to be ready as well. Efficient meetings in planned timebox are another addiction of mine.

I follow our team progress in JIRA by using different dashboards. At the same time I love and hate metrics. I am always careful what do I show to the teams. Not all metrics are our friends and almost everything can be misused or misread. So I don't spend so much time daily basis with metrics but I am on the top of them. From time to time I evaluate whether I should change something and try out different ways to show data. Data is our friend when used correctly.

I follow what is going on and if needed, I intervene. I participate meetings team members have and try to get on the top of the discussions and issues we face. I want people outside the team get to know me so that they more willingly contact me. 

I talk and chat with team members. I am currently in team where all team members are distributed in five different countries. Even without Covid-19 I wouldn't see them during work days. I try to be available for their questions. I have bi-weekly 15 minute one-on-one discussions with all team members. I build trust, I share, I care. 

I discuss or char with my Scrum Master colleagues. I currently have three Scrum Master colleagues and even I do not daily basis discuss with all of them I am in contact at least with one of them daily. That is even more important in this set-up when it is not possible to meet face-to-face. I am always available if they have anything to ask or discuss. I always reach them if I have something. I believe sharing is caring and this way we can support each other and learn while doing that. 

I have daily focus topics in my calendar. If there is any free time - like there is slot or two in normal days - I focus on one specific topic. There are different topics. For example days when we have Backlog Refinement meetings I focus on refinement. I might look for ideas how to split stories. There is always something to learn and things to try out with team. Extremely important for me as Scrum Master put focus both on my own development and team's improvement. 

I want team to have fun. People do matter and I want them to enjoy their work days. I spend some time to figure out something fun to do with them. Not daily, but quite often. It is not a big job to find out some funny pictures, funny stories to share or similar. Using music in meetings and showing videos. Little bit more challenging in remote context but achievable. I just need to be more creative than when team is colocated.

For me being Scrum Master means that I do not do anything team members themselves can do. My job is mostly invisible for them and also for others around the team. And I honestly believe that is how it should be. I am suppose to be the non-visible person behind the team. 

Why McPhee

When I started with team V, they were just starting their Scrum Journey. They had worked in Kanban mode and all the sudden they were expected to be a Scrum Team. I had the pleasure to help them in their journey from the very beginning and not all steps had been so fluent. After  half a year I had feeling we are not improving fast enough. There were pressure and expectations outside from the team. As usual I found myself to be the reason for that. I felt I haven't been expecting enough from the team, maybe even done too much on behalf of them.

I decided write a letter to the team. I considered different approaches and any of them didn't feel right. Then I got an idea: I write them letter from Soikka McPhee. I am used to work with teams who are either just starting or struggling with their Agile Journey. I don't say I felt being not wanted but somehow I saw that Nanny McPhee and her way of working were a match and immediately got  many ideas how to utilize Nanny McPhee's philosophy. 

So I wrote a letter about our journey, what kind of challenges we had face and what is there to come and signed it "Soikka McPhee".

Those who have seen Nanny McPhee movies  hopefully remember that in both movies Nanny had 5 lessons to teach.

In the first movie "Nanny McPhee" Nanny went to the Brown household to tame Mr Brown's seven bad-manner children. Her five lessons to teach were:

1. They will learn how to say "please" and "thank you"
2. They will do as they are told
3. They will learn to dress on their own
4. They will learn to listen (I am not sure whether this lesson was more for the father than for children)
5. They will be prepared to face the consequences of one's actions.

From these five lessons I couldn't easily formulate my own five lessons to teach or didn't really found any similarities what I have taught for earlier teams I've worked with. 

In the second movie "Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang" Nanny went to a farm to help a harried young mother who was trying to run the family farm while her husband was away at war. Nanny taught farmer's children and their two spoiled cousins five new lessons.

1. Stop fighting
2. Share nicely
3. Help each other
4. Be brave
5. Have faith

In these five new lessons I can more easily formulate my own lessons to teach but I am not quite there yet. With help of my ex-colleague I have started to rephrase the five lessons I as Scrum Master want to teach to my team considering all the previous teams and what I have taught to them. I can't wait my next letter to the team V explaining what are the lessons I want to teach them.

I want to look back and gather lessons from the past. I have myself learned a lot during these recent years when I have been working as Scrum Master or as Agile Coach. How have my own lessons evolved during these years? Teams have been different in many ways and tricks which have worked with one team have been doomed to fail with another team. 

These lessons, learnings and stories I want to share and this is why I now start this blog. I hope there is even one person who can get something for himself by reading my posts.