Dear Scrum Masters/Agile Coaches,
Here are my notes after working with more than 200 Scrum Teams for 10+ years.
- No matter how much we all learn in our entire life, we will remain ignorant. Arrogance is worse than ignorance if you accept that you need to keep learning.
- If you don’t live the Scrum values you cannot be a good person and you cannot be a good Scrum Master without being a good person.
- Go beyond the conventional linear cause-effect thinking and see the underlying structural root causes. Identify circular systematic causes , identify parts of the system and try to understand the relations, enforcing and balancing factors.
- It will take time to see the results of every action you take to improve the team. You have to be patient. If you try to take many actions at the same time, you will not be able to understand which one is effective.
- There is no recipe for any kind of situation. Scrum patterns help to guide for solutions but still you need to find your own solution. If you desire to help your team to reach the hyper-productivity level you need to learn Scrum Patterns. Never do anything blindly in Scrum.
- Do not blame any person for anything. Behavior is mostly a result of the structure of the system.
- Note that it is not possible to put the team in a closed room and disconnect them from the outside world. It is normal for them to interact with their environment and leaders. Get their support.
- In a broken system, nothing works well. Without 3-5-3 (roles,events,artifacts) Scrum does not exist.
- Learn and understand the Lean tools.
- Never forget that, innovation can come from anyone, keep improving your listening skills and never discourage people to tell their ideas.
- You can learn lots of retrospective techniques but Kaizen is more than that. To have a real impact you have to deeply understand the context.
- Methods are nothing if you miss the context.
- Have fun as much as you can.
Suha Selçuk
