Scrum Master Fundamentals at Scale

All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon, everyone, I want to go ahead and we want to go ahead and begin this session. So we have a few participants in this call already. So we’re gonna go ahead and get started for time. And first of all, firstly, we want to thank everyone here for joining us. We want to thank our panelists, and we’re administration for being able to host this event. So we’ll go ahead and get started today with our webinar. This is the scrum master fundamentals that skill webinar, and we will be presented by the i Four group and I S. C. Company. So, without further ado, I will go ahead and I’ll be the moderator for today. And we’ll go ahead and begin with our webinar. All right. Bear with me just a moment. So I want to go ahead and and begin with introductions. So we will begin with our introductions of our first panelist, Charles Mattox. Charles, I see you here on the call, we’re gonna go ahead and turn it over to you.

01:26

Thanks for having me. And thanks for all that strikes. Well, they join. Yep, Charles Maddox, founder and CEO of the eye for group, we are a training and consulting company in the Agile field. And yet we’ve been we’ve been doing this type of work for the last 10 years and working in different environments and different industries. And personally, my background is in software development, which I haven’t touched code in over 20 years. But I still have that familiarity, and fire over the last 10 years, working as an agile consultant, helping companies develop better processes, technical practices, with their software engineering, as well as scaling enterprise scale, to ensure that there are methods and properties in place to help the entire organization become agile. And that’s kind of been our focus as of late with the i Four group. And that’s about it for me. Thanks for having me.

02:19

All right, excellent. Thank you so much, Charles. And thank you so much for being here and taking the time to be able to share the information with us here today as well. Next, I’d like to turn it over to our other panelist, awesome Shibas.

02:35

Hey, good afternoon, everybody can hear me. Just want to say thank you for having me over. I guess we’ve been doing this for like over 10 to 12 years now. And bout started out software development coding windows 2000 server, why? Wyatt, why 2k When the world was going to end, and been working with transformation, organization development, training of tech and helping the adoption of Texas y2k, and been working in Agile lean with IFOA, Charles for the last 10 to 11 years actually implemented at scale, coaching and supporting and playing various roles from scrum master, Pol PM, RTE and, and really been helping to expand this from a lean agile perspective at scale. So, thank you for having me.

03:27

Absolutely. Thank you so much. Awesome. And thank you so much for joining us and being able, again, as I said, being able to join us here and share the information that you have. So what I’d like to begin is, we’re gonna go ahead and jump into our webinar, we’re going to start with a series of questions. So awesome. And Charles, I’m going to go ahead and ask each each one of you kind of just some questions and based off of your experience, you get to you can share with us and be able to enlighten us with the scrum master fundamentals at scale. So, without further ado, so I’ll go ahead and jump in into our first question. And this question is going to be for Charles. So Charles, how is the journey different between the new scrum master versus the experienced scrum master?

04:19

Wow, I love this picture. Because we talked about this how this kind of resonates with a Scrum Masters journey. For those that are maybe just listening on the phone. You can’t really see this but different stages that you are in your career or your maturity as a scrum master, you can see the person you’re just trying to map out where you are. I mean, what does the scrum master field look like? I’ve been a project manager or I’ve been a business analyst. I’m moving into the scrum master role. What should I expect? How should I go about it? Just mapping it out. And then you know you first make the attempts or you plan a vision plan. Of course you could see the guy here driving a car He’s like, No, I’m gonna climb that mountain. This is something that I’m making a decision to make that I’m going to go after it’s going to be a career pivot minor, I’m going to move into this role, and I’m going to go down this path. And then I like this, this Basecamp idea here where you know, you just begin your journey, you’re you’ve just entered the fold of agile and as being a scrum master, and you’re getting your, your weight up, you’re getting here, your credentials up your training, your understanding of what it takes, you’ve been in the trenches for a while. And you can see the guy scaling the mountain, he’s in full, full scale, he’s going up the cliff, and it even appears dangerous, that times where you’re really pushing the envelope in terms of helping organizational agility, you’ve been in more than just a journeyman, you’re kind of you’d been becoming a master a true masters in Scrum, the scrum master, we’re gonna get to that one, but you’re a true master and such that you’re really showing the perfection of your craft, and you’re showing the, the organizations that you are in how agility can become a part of a mindset within the organization. And so as you’re, you know, as being a scrum master, you may land in different situations in different companies at these different times, and periods over your career. So you know, how to plot a course, how to, you know, plan where you’re going to go from here, you know, there’s a different perspective each time here, so, but yeah, I like this visual, just, you know, definitely need to understand where you are in your career, where you’re trying to go and different areas apply in this in this in this particular area. So, but yeah, just these are kind of four common areas where Scrum Masters would find themselves within their career, yet plotting out a course, you know, making a decision on this direction, I’m going to get establish that base camp, and then you’re kind of honing and perfecting your skills. Another thing that’s common in the industry where we hear around, this was kind of the Shu ha ri approach, and that can apply to the role itself of a scrum master, where you’re gonna go through an understanding of where you’re going, and then you’re starting to practice some of the aspects that you’re learning, and then the RE is kind of, you’re starting to optimize indoor, perfect and master and become a master at your craft. So excellent, excellent choice of describing the journey like this mammoth. Thanks.

07:29

Absolutely, thank you so much, Charles. It’s a very insightful for you and to describe these pictures in as the journey as a scrum master. It’s also very insightful, to have this visual representation. Awesome. I want to turn this over to you with the same with the same thing with the same image here that we see in regards to the journey. So what are the distinct differences in challenges that a new scrum master faces versus an inexperienced scrum master that might face?

08:01

Thanks, Muhammad? That’s a good question. I think part of the challenge. And I think, if I know reflecting back on who I’ve coached and the work that we’ve had to do, and as you mature one misconceptions on what a scrum master is, me coming into it, what do I need to know? What What am I supposed to do? I think if we asked everybody know, when we start asking, you know, you get it’s a DSU. You know, it’s it’s this, you know, everyone has their idea of how they constrain the role or expand the role. And I think that that’s something that as a coming into it, you don’t know what you don’t know. And you’re collecting like that map, you’re looking for guidance, you’re looking for a path that show you Hey, is this am I going the right way? Is this the right thing for me, and you’re trying to sift through all the information, you know, you got people like myself, you have people like Charles, you know, we are often out here connecting with communities of practice and talking to them. And then as you become experience, you realize that everyone looking at the scrum master is looking at from a different perspective. You have to meet them where they are. And you have to know what your goals and objectives are. And like that Basecamp photo, every time you meet a new team, you move from being a master to a learner. You know, no matter how much experience you have, you have to watch the dynamics. You have to get the feel for your team and the obstacles and the challenges that they’re going to have. And then again, there’s the tooling that you’re going to use as you look at the one who’s rappelling up the who’s ascending the face of the mountain right now. You know, who are your strong teammates? Who was the skill set? Who’s doing the belaying right. And as you climb, what are the tools you’re going to need if you’re using one of the tools, I hate to say agile tools but to help facilitate tools, you know, and so I think that that’s one of the main differences is that when you are experience you have to forget what you’ve learned sometimes, because every opportunity, every ascent, every new base camp you set up has different dynamics and as a different culture, and what it means to be high performing. And it’s an adventure to me every time one starts, it’s a new adventure. So

10:18

absolutely. Thank you so

10:19

much. I just want to add, just to say, I think the q&a is open as well, if people want to post questions as we’re moving through, so we can pick those up and make this interactive. So we’re not lecturing at you. This is about being interactive.

10:33

Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much also for and for mentioning that as well. And for sharing your the information and your knowledge. So yes, as I also mentioned, please utilize the chat for any questions and answer for any questions, so that we can go ahead and take questions as we go along through this course. Or this webinar. So excellent. So we want to thank you both Charles and awesome for sharing this, this information here. Now, when we jump, only talk about the scrum master, right when we when we in terms of the scrum master here. So, Charles, I want to address the question to you. So as a Scrum Master, how should I address my organization’s skewed interpretation of what a scrum master is supposed to do? And I think Charles, you’re on?

11:25

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent question. Yeah, thanks for that did this. This slide kind of really tickles me about, about what what Morpheus is saying here, says, What if I told you Scrum Master is not a project manager, it’s like, boom, blowing your mind on, you know, a lot of project managers saying, Oh, I thought I was just gonna be setting up a bunch of meetings and just monitoring progress and doing check ins. Well, the scrum master is much more dynamic than that. It’s a very dynamic role. And in, we oftentimes find it a little bit hilarious to why somebody could just take a two day class and all of a sudden, you’re a master, you become the master. And so as you see Anakin here to someone say Master, you’re just an apprentice, typically a Moschino. And that’s the reality is like a lot of Scrum Masters are in the learning journey along the way. And at the beginning, we’re talking about mostly mechanics, right? We’re talking about how to establish and understand some best practices, what Agile is what agility is, what are some of the events that I can help facilitate and be a standard bearer for agile, agile, best practices at these different events. And I’ll give you some of my, I like to give you our old kung fu geek, right? Like the fact that they want kung fu movies are popular and watched a lot of them. If you remember, the guy that had the long white beard, he was almost invincible, to beat. And the guy that the guys that actually, were able to defeat this guy who was invincible, they actually defeated him with what they call soft Kung Fu, which was being able, you know, the opposite, you know, the, you know, the ying yang concept of the soft style, of Kung Fu and of martial art very similarly. And there’s a lot of type of martial arts connections with, with Agile actually, too. And I just mentioned, like the Shu ha ri approach as well. But also to some of the soft skills as a scrum master are some of the most powerful, and he’s oftentimes don’t develop those until later, to really become a master, a master Scrum Master, you’re, you’re developing the most emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, coaching, you know, understanding being a servant leader versus just being, you know, just very tactical in focus. So actually, truly becoming the master, if you see on these slides here is really being in the trenches, and understanding those soft skills that it takes to really move the team to move the team forward. Very similar to like any coach and again, a scrum master, you always see bullet number one, it’s a coach, the team coach, you can think of any good coach in sports, you will see that they’re like excellent motivators, that they challenge you. They challenge the norm, they make these and make sure you challenge your assumptions and what you think is comfortable, they never technically allow you to be in a comfortable position. They’re always challenging you to be better. But similar like a scrum master, right? You shouldn’t be the one that’s making everybody feel comfortable all the time, but you’re constantly challenging and pushing the envelope of performance and understanding that you’re growing a team to high performance and so that’s what I that’s kind of what I take when I see the Slide Master. Who was the master?

14:48

Absolutely. Thank you for that Charles and thank you for the the comedy on this as well. So alright, so we can see the two how it relates these movies but still can relate to a scrum master role. And Charles, you did talk about learning and being able to challenge challenge as a team, as a coach, you challenge the team and establishing this learning. So I want to I want to change, turn to awesome. And I want to ask this question to you. So what role does education and learning play within the organization for getting the right interpretation in place for the scrum master role?

15:27

Oh, that’s a big one. I think it’s, it’s one that Mohammed bought us a good question. So I’m gonna take it from an inside out approach, right, because there’s training and as a certificate, and that certificate will say, you know, you are a master. And Anakin, as we know, never became a master. And he couldn’t, he couldn’t accept that. And, and sometimes, Scrum Masters depend on the organization that they go into, they’re not perceived for their value, and they get relegated to a meeting manager, right? And so how do you educate from from within to the outside world, who wants you not to exert your influence and not to step into coaching, and actualizing what it means to be a master in your domain. And so you always are educated and pushing the boundaries, and really putting ego to the side. Because you are representing more than one point of view. And so as that base camp, you know, the safety of your team, and at the base camp, you really set norms, right around what it means for us to interact and establishing shared meaning. So you’re educating there as well. And you’re developing a culture. So a scrum master, the team of a Scrum Master, is really set on your culture that you bring to it, and then stepping out of yourself to expand on the culture that it takes to attain and be successful. How do we leverage the DSU? So it’s not boring, right? How do we bring our own our own spice and seasoning to this recipe to give it flavor? And at the same time, what are the challenges that we need to present? What are the obstacles that we need to do to create that tension in the team to allow them to sprint to their goals? Because I’m really working towards that and removing those barriers and impediments. The second part to that is that the

17:22

and all the different solutions and services.

17:25

So then other than that, I think that we need to then I think something has happened here,

17:30

essentially create an ecosystem that says, okay, Microsoft’s at the center, you’ll hear some discounts and donations offered here. But I can pay the background.

17:38

Okay. Sorry about that. Something just started my phone started ringing assumptions, sorry about that team, is being able to then coach your team to meet those tension points in Excel. How do I interact with leaders, each leader has their own personality. So there’s no one script that’s going to fit. Education then becomes technical excellence within the team, right stewardship, and advancing the interests of the team, and then allowing it to achieve its goal. So you’re you’re a dynamic, and ensuring that the team never becomes stagnant. You look for learning opportunities, and you look to see what the roadmap looks like from a skill set perspective, right. And from soft skills from a leadership perspective, as a steward, the well being of the team is in your charge. And that’s something that I think that we as Scrum Masters when we have to play those roles or coach is that the Scrum Masters head is always on the pivot, you know, always looking to see, hey, who’s trying to excel? Where are the opportunities at? And then what can we do to anchor that and education certification is a plus, it does help, you know, it does help you get the norms down. It does help you get a community of practice where you can learn that, but also establishing that community of practice within the team. Being able to enable them to achieve their goals and create a freshness was not just that repetitive. We come in and we’re heads down. And we’re just you know, pretty Pack Mules going up the ascent, which is selling the scrum master, keep the team alive, help them stay fresh, help them recover.

19:03

Absolutely. Excellent. Thank you so much awesome for that. That’s an excellent insight on that. Thank you very much for that, you know, so awesome. You kind of described the scrum master in a somewhat of a complex role. But if you can summarize the scrum master responsibility, how would you summarize that?

19:25

My team, my team delivering value and not betraying the trust of my team, my team needs to know that I can stand up with the, to the My Pio right to my product managers and leaders and not sell them out and blame them because you know, we’re not achieving our sprints, and that they believe that I inherently as a scrum master have their best interests at heart, right, and that I’m actively not just removing barriers, impediments, but also expanding the scope of what we can achieve. And so those soft skills that Charles alluded to earlier, those become very core and fundamental your ability to nap To get to politics, your ability to empathize with the dynamics, and yet still continue to keep us sprinting forward and renewing, managing and retro. So at the retro doesn’t become boring but becomes a learning point, an inflection point where we can make decisions and have autonomy to govern ourselves. There’s a lot in so one has been able to lead and then step back and let the team make good decisions and never get complacent in learning. And I think that for me, that learning is core because you don’t you don’t get oh with learning, and it doesn’t get stale. So finding new horizons as the one that’s behind you on your background, finding new horizons.

20:39

Excellent. Thank you for that. Excellent. So also, you mentioned and Charles also mentioned, you know, discuss the soft skills that Scrum Masters need. So, Charles, I want to turn this over to you. So what are some of the key attributes of a case of the Scrum Masters job that operate in a skilled environment?

21:02

Sure, thanks, Monica, for that question. Yeah, that scene, you pulled up this, this, these pictures here of a restaurant. And I think this really resonates really well with a Scrum Masters role, and that in the big picture of things, so if you imagine one of your favorite places to go out to eat, that’s really busy. On any weekend or Friday night or something like that. Multiple hostesses, that hostess and hostesses at the at the front that you come in, you gotta wait for a while and cute. And then once you get seated, you know, you’re probably one of maybe hundreds of people in the restaurant, many waiters, waiting tables in many cooks in the kitchen. All right. So very similar to our large organizations, right, that plan and deliver products and solutions to customers. Delivering a good meal to a family is really no, no, and please, having a pleasing experience is really no really no different than delivering the optimal solution to a customer, very complex terrain to navigate. And sometimes people are hard to please, certain cooks in the kitchen, you know, want to leave early, you know, there’s all types of scenarios at play where, where things can go haywire. And communication is not right, and you can cause a mess on any given night. So to kind of using that as an analogy that everybody can kind of relate with, that your your ideal Scrum Master is that host or hostess is that hostess that meets you at the front that understand that coordination, they I mean, they’re the they’re the face of coordination, essentially, in that entire ecosystem, which is this busy restaurant to make everything keep flowing smoothly, keep these meals coming to the tables, and and everybody’s kind of in line in communication, essentially, to make sure things are operating and flowing smoothly. Another another key point about that, and I think you alluded to this, Muhammad was about the aspect of scale. Any large restaurant with so many tables being served, you know, 1020 people in the kitchen, we’re talking about scale, we’re talking about more than just a single team going about doing work. So how do we keep everybody in alignment, we need some structures, we need some communication channels in place to make sure everyone’s aligned and things are transparent, that again, that we keep the value and the customer satisfaction flowing through at an even pace and so so essentially, it’s kind of core attributes and responsibilities for that scrum master our understanding of constructs of agility that helped the team also to understanding those constructs of agility that need to be applied at scale. And that can come any elaborate you know, the key terms that you know, for those that are on the call that might not be familiar with those, those agile practices, they come down to things like sprint planning daily stand up, sprint review, sprint retrospective scrum of scrums, PII planning, Pio think art sync that there’s these different connection points to keep the larger ecosystem you know, well good communication things transparent, dependencies transparent, hello transparent, and even bottlenecks in such transparent so that we can escalate and make you know resolve some of these problems that that happened within our within our domain. So anytime that you guys are out for dinner, and you seem really busy, think about that. There’s some scrum master at play, making sure we’re keeping everything on track. And getting kudos to mommy keeping us on track with this, this presentation.

24:46

And if I could add to that, Charles, I think that you you hit on something that’s really important that the that the host is a scrum master and this dynamic is setting the tone they’ve already checked in and who what teams are managing in which basis what they loading capacity is and then managing and make sure that not too much is flowing to the any particular section of the restaurant. And they also are working to help make sure that the value that’s being delivered to each one from the kitchen side, what is another team at that has his own scrum master desk that they’re working to deliver value that you as the end user, or customer, in this case, that value desk delivers what you want, having simply having a plate thrown on the table and the experience being gone from it, and then it’s cold, it’s not valued at you would appreciate. And so the scrum master helps have shared meaning and what that value is, and help set the tone and help make sure that everyone’s been paid attention to. So if there are members of the team who get off track, that they help realign and said, This is our focus, and our customers come first. And this is the value that’s being delivered. And then all of those fundamental pillars that Charles mentioned earlier, from the scrum of scrums, the retros, the sprint planning, all of that didn’t help to deliver that agility state and to keep that mindset present when the pressure is on. So just wanted to add that, thank you. So

26:08

thank you awesome for that. And thank you both for the for the analogy, you know, for similarly, you know, similar to how we see a restaurant now we can visualize that this is how a scrum master would work with with the multiple teams and ensuring that there’s, you know, to your point, awesome that there’s some sort of balance going, available. So, awesome. I do want to address to you. So now, in regards to making establishing this balance, how does this How does the scrum master manage the balance between being a little disruptive and being productive?

26:43

Yeah, that’s a that goes to, I guess I’ll pull up my shoe off steam. But I go to what Charles said earlier, the yin and the yang. This is one that we often use, when we talk about how engaging a scrum master is. And a scrum master has to especially as you become a master right, as you start to develop your soft skills, you start to know when to stop and and when to facilitate. The scrum master cannot be a passive agent. And right now we see Ivan, he’s, he is very passionate about his role, and maintaining the fidelity of the tooling and the instruments in his case. In this case, even though it looks like a board, that board is a communication point. And everyone needs to trust what is communicating, whether it’s on Jira, right, whether you’re looking at another tooling situation, you are using that tool. And so if I come up and change the shared meaning of what the definition of done is, right and move the state without validating with my scrum master that it has met the acceptance criteria, and that it is done, then Muhammad I should be looking over my shoulder. If it’s Susan, right, if it’s Saran, maybe come coming down, even if we were remote, I should have some regard for the terms that we’ve agreed to work with. And so the scrum master has to know when that dynamic needs to be solved by the team, because the team sometime has to own that, hey, this is not how we do it, especially if there’s someone new and we have team agreements that the scrum master helps facilitate and the tone right and how we treat each other and manage conflict, as Charles alluded to earlier. And then that the second half is then when do I tend to just stop and just as a scrum master and let the team know as a coach? Okay, timeout timeout, you know, and this is a version of Ivan’s timeout. He’s in timeout. So this is a good one. I appreciate that.

28:39

Absolutely. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you for sharing on Ivan himself, too. So his role as a as a scrum master. So Charles, just want to turn to you over on this. So can you explain and you know, we see Ivan here as being an engaged scrum master. Can you explain what an engaged scrum master looks like in a in a skilled environment?

29:03

Thanks. I would advise you not to grab somebody by the throat being a new scrum master and organization and put them up on the wall. So this is comical, but you know, I it’s showing that I’ve been definitely engaged. I mean, he’s passionate about this guy actually, which is actually really ticking Ivanoff this he’s put he’s moving this, this card, this development card and calling it done. And he said, I got it looking around, you know, he No, he didn’t meet the definition of Done to Austin’s point, if I didn’t do some, some eating have a code review, or he didn’t have some type of review or meet some certain criteria, but he’s like, I’m calling my stuff done. I want to be done. I want to go home. Whereas, you know, a part of our agile principles, right? Is like quality matters. You know, we don’t like quality no matter what, and Ivan take that to heart. And so he’s truly passionate about that to the point where you disrupt Give a little bit. And I think I’ve mentioned that a little bit earlier that a good Scrum Master is disruptive, it’s creating that, that, that right balance where you’re, you’re pushing the norms, you’re not sitting around very complacent. And, you know, just just falling into the same old, same old were, you know, and you know, I’m just gonna just kind of be easy and let things go where it No, you’re constantly pressing the envelope of performance, as I mentioned, in the coaching scenario, constant, trying to find ways to motivate people to higher and higher levels of performance. And so things like just moving the SQL posted over into the dunk column, when you know, you didn’t meet that criteria is something that I haven’t doesn’t play with you doesn’t go that route. Because you could also to imagine that at scale, and where this comes in at scale is, is that now the team has a misrepresentation about their actual status and progress that you’re making. Think about how that impacts integration across the entire system, that, you know, it could potentially be looked at, as this team has been fully integrated, they’re fully done, they’re meeting the full done criteria. And then that impacts another team’s ability to effectively plan and integrate and deploy their solutions into what whatever environment that they want to go into next. And so that’s why it’s important that a scrum master allow for that clear communication and transparency, because there they are the connection point, they are the coordination point to other teams, and to the larger organization, that the whole to make sure that they’re properly and accurately reflecting what’s happening, you know, at the ground for their particular team. So I feel this becomes very important. And that’s why it’s important to understand some of these concepts at scale, and some of the events at scale, that are important for that to make sure that these things are communicated properly, so that you can keep an entire organizational unit in, in alignment together, because it’s not just all about your team. And no one else that your team has, is just one team and a greater ecosystem of other teams working in trying to deliver solutions to customers as well. So it’s very important that a scrum master understand these aspects at scale, and that they understand the engagement within their team and outside of their team to make sure that everything is flowing properly and smoothly. Thanks, Mom.

32:20

Excellent, excellent. So thank you both for sharing Charles and awesome on this. And show in you know, depicting on how Ivan as a scrum master being an engaged scrum master. He works with the teams and make sure that the teams aren’t doing anything that they are not supposed to. So they the coaching the teams a little bit more violent, but and this is just more for Comic Relief. But thank you for both for for sharing your your insight on this. So when we talk about when we talk about Scrum Master, we we often know that there are so many different pathways for the scrum master. And so Charles, I want to ask you there. So with so many different pathways and certifications out there, how do I know which one I should take?

33:08

Alright, yeah, great question. Muhammad. So yeah, getting you know, I definitely advise getting some scrum master training, and also to getting you know, maybe if scrum master training is a little bit beyond you think where you’re at currently, possibly getting some agile fundamentals training, there’s some courses like in the IETF job domain that can at least kind of baseline yourself on understanding the fundamentals of agile, as well as scrum Alliance or some you know, Scrum fundamentals, courses, things of that nature. But what is agility, understanding agility, so you have those concepts down. Also, then right after that, you probably, you know, it’s good to have some type of Scrum Master certification, there’s, you know, there’s a scrum.org, just certification and there’s the scrum Alliance, as well as the scrum master certification as well. But these certifications will enable you to understand the core practices of Scrum. So not only that to get the fundamentals of agile in place, but you understand how to apply it in these particular scrum events. Okay. The thing about certification is, it’s, it’s a stepping stone. Again, you don’t become the master right after the class. Obviously, if you grow into this, you need to apply it. So getting the scrum master certification is just one step in your overall journey. But it is necessary it shows you do have a level of understanding that you went through some training, you potentially pass an examination of some sort, and that you have some proficiency at being able to articulate the concepts within the scrum framework and in larger frameworks, such as the Scaled Agile Framework as well. I will add that the Scaled Agile Framework, certification does add those concepts of a scrum master being in a scaled environment. So we do elaborate quite a bit on how do you As a scrum master coordinate with other Scrum Masters in a larger ecosystem on how to essentially on how to be an effective scrum master in a larger organization beyond just your team’s boundaries, so, but yeah, definitely, you know, getting training is definitely one of the one of the steps. But I, like I said, coaching and mentoring with other more experienced Scrum Masters and coaches, you know, on the ground in an organization that’s also needed as well.

35:36

Excellent. Thank you. Thank you so much, Charles, Charles, for that. So, so talking about in regards to going back to the concept of coaching, awesome, you won’t address the question to you. What does having coaching and mentorship, play along with certification training? What role does it does it have

36:01

this a dynamic role? Because that’s a good question. When you look at it, right? We can’t necessarily take credit for their team’s work, you know, the coach should be able to facilitate and be in the background, and lead from the back, right. And at the same time, there are opportunities with leadership when the scrum master is in front. And then is the time when the scrum master is embedded within those dynamics have do ceremonies help facilitate that, like doing a retro? Is it my voice? Or is it my team’s voice? Right? That’s, that’s an important time for the team to really look at itself, do assessment, what is my role as a coach, pull out the stats, right? Pull out the data to help them make better decision making. So there’s those points where they lean on me from a facilitation standpoint, or from a data standpoint to be objective, and to give them a picture of what we did do. So I think it’s dynamic. And then I think as a coaching point, externally with some stakeholders, I the PIO, etc, I may have to coach them on their tone and how they’re interacting with the team, right? How the what the team’s capacity actually is, and then coached them to be able to right size to work in order to fit that right. When it comes to sizing and estimating what is my job as a scrum master? Am I telling them what it is? Or am I letting the team be empowered to facilitate and assess based on the experience to help drive to better outcomes, what value we can agree on, though, we can definitely deliver. So I think that that’s not point as you grow into your role and become a master, you start facilitating better knowing when to drop back. Because as your team matures, technically speaking, you know, I don’t know who’s Tampa Bay Bucs fans here. But since you know, Brady’s there, we might also go with that, you know, you have to be able to know when you as a coach, when the team has it. Right? They got it. They’re functioning, that high performing, they’ve established the norms and technical excellence, I don’t need to keep putting my hands in there now. And sometimes letting go is one big advantage or struggle for Scrum Masters who come from a traditional approach where you used to telling people what to do. And sometimes the biggest challenge is this holding yourself and letting the team work through his dynamics and solve its problems and move to high performance. So I think it’s a very dynamic role. It’s a soft and powerful role.

38:16

Excellent, excellent question. Thank you awesome for sharing for sharing that. I do want to address a question in our, in our q&a from Dante. So as a new scrum master, updating my CV, I get empowering my team, they’re delivering their delivery value and are for the most part self-governing, what would it look like? Or worded on my CV as not just taking credit for team results as like a pm product manager? Take that one awesome.

38:58

That, because that depends on where you’re going. Right? You know, where’s the where, where are you going as organization? Right, Charles, I think is really important. And so I don’t want to flip flop on it because I think it’s dynamic. And maybe we can just tag team. And I think there’s one level where you talk about your KPIs, right, whether you drive into performance, and your ability to align to achieve your goals, and that you call shows x. And so what are you doing to do that? And what are those key words and patterns that you’re able to align to? If you know what to set that the organization is using to achieve agility, right, if they’re in a safe or if they’re from scrum Alliance, whatever that platform, a framework that they’re using and being able to speak to that’s going to be important, Charles, your thoughts? Just because our thoughts on

39:40

1. My thoughts on that? You know, I think what I’m hearing is that you’re not necessarily taking credit for the team’s success. Teams can be high performing, right? That’s it the fact of the matter, to think about in sports, you still you know, teams that are success. Well, the coaches get the Coach of the Year award. But I know there’s some there’s some good coaches too, that are not on some unsuccessful team too. So, but the thing is, is that you know, as a remember, here’s a good here’s a good analogy to that. I remember a couple years ago, when the Golden State Warriors were always in the finals, their coach, Steve Kerr basically inherited a championship team. I mean, as soon as he started day one, they were almost there in the finals. The people like, Well, you didn’t really build that team, you didn’t build the culture. But you know, Steve, Kurt, he made a very valid point that always apply to the scrum master role. In it coach, the coach he wrote, he said, You know what, it’s a challenge. It’s something that you got to test yourself, to keep finding ways to motivate and get better. And that was one of his biggest challenges. I mean, he’s got the all star Steph Curry Kevin Durant, all the guys that are like the probably the greatest players of all time, he’s he’s had his challenge was to come keep coming up with ways to find a motivate them. And that was that was a challenge in and of itself. So you even though you’re not, you might not be taking credit necessarily for their work. But just you need to find it even setting up a scrum master community of practice or something, setting up a Lean Coffee event where you can share ideas about best practices, that’s just taking that thing, that ticket to the next level, you know, you’re just finding ways to kind of take it a notch higher. And so if you put that on your resume with a high performing team that, hey, I established a Lean Coffee event for the entire scrum group that I worked in or you know, was the first person to start a community of practice, you and you start sharing best practices with other yummy sharing with your what your team is doing great. So the other teams is an opportunity for improvement. So just the small things. Yeah, it’s unfortunate. They say a good scrum master, by the way kind of works themselves out of a job job, you’ve got to just sit back, and it’s a high performing culture, and you just can sit back and watch it. So it is what it is in that

41:57

case. And I think that goes to the dynamic too, sometimes when new Scrum Masters come inherent to teams, before they normally you know, and typically you build your, your strength behind one team in a pattern, and you gain that experience before you step into the other one. So being able to point to, as Charles said, some of those clear artifacts or ceremonies that you helped establish that improve the system and added value, and continue to evolve the team then continue to achieve his goals and align. So those if you’ve done that, then those are the spaces where you as a scrum master can own what you brought to the table. And then the result is the improvement in the team. So look at that. And the way you maintain business relationships and advocate with them working and collaborating with the PIO to ensure that the work is sighs and that delivery is on time.

42:53

Thank you both for the for in for sharing the insight on that. I’d like to also at this time, I’d like to open the floor for any questions that you may have. So thank you, Dante for that for that questions. Very good question. So if you have any questions we can open the floor for you can either raise your hand we can allow you to speak or if you’d like to put it into our q&a, we can definitely go ahead and answer it from there. So I’ll give it just a brief moment here before we move on.

43:41

It seems that Charles and awesome, did such a great job of explaining the scrum master role that we don’t have any questions, right.

43:49

I just want to make one comment, mom, and if I can’t, so yeah, and I understand, you know, anybody who is that sees this webinar, either live or recorded. You know, definitely we are hoping us when we’re coaches, we’re enterprise coaches, and we help Scrum Masters and we help organizations and we definitely just like giving back and helping those that have come through the journey. I’ve been, I was a certified scrum master at one time. So I understand the whole journey and going through this, this this navigating these terrain. So we definitely are, you know, open to helping and we love we’d love to do that. We’d love to get back. And that’s part of this whole idea of these webinars is to really share what we know and to help anybody else that’s coming up and to help you guys, you know, grow and become better practitioners on your journey. So I just wanted to throw that in there. Type on

44:43

there’s a new q&a Question to Mohammed just came in.

44:46

Yes, I see that. So thank you. Thank you rose. So the question is, how do you transform a project manager mindset to a scrum master mindset in any tools for coaching

45:02

Yeah, I can say that depends on the person. But part of what I would recommend is design thinking. Improv spaces where you have to let go of, of the assumption that you know the outcome, right and let go of that you’re the one in quote, control and responsible for controlling, and shift to a steward mindset. So, also look at what the stewardship mean to you, and how do you see what attributes or values you can bring to it, how to leverage the tools, I’ve seen retros where the scrum master, for better or for worse, will have a leading question, right, that kind of sets up or kills the conversation? Because they will say, Well, we haven’t I didn’t see anything wrong this week, you know, in the last few weeks with the sprint, what about you guys? You know that who wants to counter that? Right? So learn how to ask open ended questions that facilitate people to go deeper, your team to go deeper, but first, Know thy own culture, no down, sell what you bring to the table, and ways that you can consistently improve, and that that’s a good too. Yeah, that’s, that’s a good too. facilitation, I think is important skill set, because it helps you not control, it helps you let go and come back. It’s leading that astrologers used to mentor me at one point in time leading from the back of the room, you know, and learning how to do that effectively, even in trainings. So.

46:47

Excellent, thank you so much. Awesome.

46:50

I gotta ask you that too. You know, one tool that I know, the prints, one of the principles of the Scaled Agile Framework is cadence and synchronization. And in applying that, you know, and this is something that’s not, you know, uncommon or unfamiliar in project management is to do rolling wave planning, and to do is to have a cadence, and a project. But, you know, these are learning moments that every time you kind of K, you have something on a cadence, and you synchronize, it’s a learning opportunity. So it’s, it’s a, it’s a time in which the evaluate value being delivered at that time and space at that particular time. And so that’s the kind of the key difference between project management and agile delivery is we have incremental value delivery happening all the time, versus just sticking to a project plan, and a work breakdown structure, which hopefully, you deliver some value at the end, and it’s in everything is perfect. Whereas, you know, the light bulb starts to come on when you start to have these recurring meetings in an agile environment, where you’re talking about value that’s being delivered. And so basically, what I’m what I’m meaning to say is that sometimes it’s the evolution, the organization has to be exposed to these new ways of working, it just takes a while to get it, you know, at some point, it starts to click, you never go into any new organization, and these traditional project managers and even a leadership automatically say, Oh, I understand I understand the value of agile versus project management, let’s just go dive in and do it. They’re always stuck because they’re, they’re understanding the offense point is that they, they’re used to having this this preset plan on how to, you know, supposedly predict everything out to the, to the tee, at some, some some type of milestone out there. Whereas it never happens that way, the only way that you really truly know how to get there is to have an incremental approach to evaluate, and very short cycles to really learn where you’re going and to reduce risk if you’re going in the wrong direction. So it just takes a while. And the point about the scrum master as being one of those to change agents in this and a part of this whole webinar is you have to kind of set some of these opportunities in motion whereas we’ve talked about it before communities that practice learning opportunities is an ongoing education might sound like a broken record talking about the same things over and over again people get tired of it but I mean, you’re telling the truth, people will chat to you into remote environments i i see it people chat on the side like me and you’re saying the right thing is I don’t they’re just not getting it, but you just got to keep doing it you keep sticking with it because that’s your that’s your role as a change agent is to keep talking about where we need to go and how we need to kind of get back into a an agile mindset or we need to evolve to this versus stand in this thing in the same space where we are stuck in kind of a traditional project mindset. So you know, you got it. You got to you got to have thick skin sometimes you got to have be persistent, you don’t never give up you just keep wasn’t it? And because this is no, this is your responsibility as a Scrum Master, you’re a change agent. That’s what you do. So

50:06

I was gonna add to that, Charles, to what you said about that flexibility in the mindset and mapping out to the nth degree, you know, with the, with the reflection of this holiday season that we’re coming up with, and people who use Waze, right, you know, trying to, you know, you start out with a path every day. And when you when you’re on it, you start assessing the data, real time, you start looking and looking towards feedback. And part of that transformation is letting go of the assumption that you know, and actually looking at what are you learning? What is it that we see, because even in a sprint as a scrum master, you you’re still making a quasi commitment. That’s a forecast, you know, and so that’s where the scrum master can get caught. And then you fall right back into that project management mindset, versus no, we’re forecasting. And we’re doing our job to look at what are the impediments that may block us and trying to resolve those. However, at the same time, we may need to give feedback to say, You know what, we had three tests come back, and this is not going and we’re midway through the sprint, we need to make some adjustments in our commitment, because this is going to affect other teams downstream. So it’s being honest about your feedback. And sometimes a scrum master has to deliver. Oh, inconvenient truths. And you can’t wait to the last minute to do it, though it will feel better that the scrum master has to deliver to the PL you know, this is not happening. We know we committed to but based on what we’ve seen, there’s just too much congestion, ie traffic. And when you have to let somebody know you’re going to be late, you know, you don’t wait to five minutes. As soon as you start seeing that pattern, you have to let go what you predict it in the end, and sucking costs. Charles, I think that’s a good way to say if you want to let go of a project management mindset is to let go how much you’ve invested into something. So total, you don’t get locked into it. So you can stay agile, and keep that mindset. So no, don’t think you know, you probably just time into it. That’d be one easiest ways not to trick yourself into locking in all certainty. The scrum master has to manage a certain level of uncertainty to give themselves flexibility. Yeah.

52:26

Thank you both for answering that question. And thank you rose for asking the great question. So for the for the sake of time, I want to just kind of move on just briefly closed. Before we close. We saw both of you, Charles and awesome thank you for for sharing the information and sharing the knowledge. You both presented some very insightful information and brought us some analogies from from what we see on an almost day to day basis. So with that, with that being said, and your knowledge that you have awesome, do you have any upcoming classes that we can benefit from and participate in and learn more about the role of the Scrum Master?

53:08

Yeah, well, yes, and I think this is important to how we how we land this from ifci jobs perspective and co hosted and supported by with I four, we have the scrum master training, which is for entry level where you have some experience on July 12, through the 15th. And then we have the scrum master advanced training through August 16 and 19. And there are some unique differences in between the two that you know, like that pitcher where you know which way do I go right? Is important to know I’ve had Charles, I’m quite sure you to have Scrum Masters show up at the scrum master advanced training. And they’re new, they just got the job or they’re they they’re going up in new opportunity. And it doesn’t cover the DSU. Right, because you have maturity in your development. The prerequisite is that you’ve already established those patterns, then you’re looking at KPIs and workflow and conflict management and how to continue to push and elevate your game. So that way you can move from Kilimanjaro to K to to the Himalayas, right, you can continue to your set and with the teams that you work with. So it’s good to know that so feel free to reach out if you have any questions. Charles, any thoughts from you?

54:25

Yeah, definitely, definitely want to know that you’re you’re you feel comfortable. You’re taking the right training options. And as we mentioned before, we’re talking about how to navigate. We’ve seen you know, so many come through this path before and definitely have a good lot of good ideas to share with you. And again, we’d love to help you in any way to be the best practitioner you can be. Yeah, so we’re, we’re definitely open to that.

54:55

Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you both for that as well. So I think there’s that least something that we can can benefit from taking the courses with you both. So from ensuring being able to experience the knowledge firsthand in the courses. So without and that kind of concludes our webinar for today. I did want to add the information for Charles and Olson as well. So for any email questions, any any final thoughts? Awesome. Or Charles, before we close out this session here?

55:33

No, thanks for taking time. I think one of the main that I’ve heard Oh, there’s a question that came into the QA if you want to pick it up, but thanks for the time. This is important. Our time is limited, you know, everyone has sort of zoom or, you know, teams fatigue at this point. So the fact that you came here to join us, our intention was to deliver value to you. And it makes sure that we gave you something that we believe that you can’t read in a book. And hopefully, we were able to do that. Feel free to reach out to us for mentorship opportunities, you know, tag us on LinkedIn. And we’re here to support as Charles said, and help grow the community.

56:10

Yeah, just to add to that, too, definitely, we’re open to support if you know, there’s anyone that might benefit from this recording, this recording will be posted, and you might get an email on you know, somebody else might benefit from this discussion. Be on the lookout. Awesome. and I are also doing a diversity panel on agility. And I’ll be coming up next month on just being a diverse individual, someone of the diverse background and in the industry of agility, and how that can play out and and some of the things to look out for, and that’s gonna be coming up next month. And we’d love to have you guys tune into that as well. So yeah, look forward to hearing from anybody. And thanks, a lot. Mahadevan for moderating. And Amanda, thank you guys so much, and those that attended.

56:56

And feel free to follow us on LinkedIn and stay in touch. As we continue, and our collaboration and working and CO hosting events and trainings, that we intend to build a center of excellence within our own communities of practice, right, with the work that we do that drives and what sets us apart. You know, some of us may always forever be apprentice, because we always want to keep learning, right. And we may feel uncomfortable with the term master. But we’re lifelong learners. And education is a core fundamental part of this. There. Every time we step into a new environment we’re learning, and I shift to the apprentice. I’ll turn it over to the master Charles.

57:40

All right, well, thank you. Thank you both so much for taking the time out of your day to share with us this, this information. We’ve definitely learned a lot here today. And we definitely see value in learning more from from you both. So very much appreciated to both of you, and to Amanda for being available and assisting us as well. And then also, I’d like to thank all the attendees, for joining us, again, taking the time out of your day to join us for on a Thursday. And you know, after lunch and being able to learn from us from from awesome, and from Charles. So I do want to reach out and thank you all. So as Charles mentioned, you will, you will get following the email with the recording of this of this webinar. So if you do have any information, any questions, feel free to email us I have the emails both for Charles and for awesome, up on the screen. So feel free to as they mentioned, reach out on LinkedIn, and contact contact us through the through the their emails as well. So all right. And I believe that is all the time that we have for today. We want to respect everyone’s time. It is two o’clock. So we are going to go ahead and end the session here. And again, thank you all for attending. Thank you all for taking the time and hope you all have a wonderful day.